Jacob Polley was commissioned in 2004 to write a poem on The Storey. The commission formed part of a larger project including a poem by Gael Turnbull, working with Lancaster City Council, Folly and The Storey Gallery  which explored the Storey building plans through a virtual model of the space. 

Welcome to your mouths and tongues

Welcome to your mouths and tongues,
to those pink and sticky places
worked by words. Welcome to your eyes
and to those moments when your minds bump
the sides of your skulls and your faces
quiver and tilt. Welcome to you who smile

and you who won't, and you who carry yourselves
like eggs on spoons or wear your clothes like costumes.
Hello to your hands, to the ways they hold you,
to the tinkering your fingers do.
For a building waits to be undone,
its rooms to be lit, its corridors followed,

its floors to be dialled from the lift, then delivered.
Welcome to your feet, your freedom,
whatever it might be that brought you here
to sit or stand, to speak or listen:
welcome to your reason. Hello to your backs,
to those parts of you you hardly know

but by whose slouch or silhouette
your loved ones catch you up. Welcome
to your accents, to the accidents of birth you bear,
to your mother's brow and your father's hair.
Hello to those returning and to those who''ve never been.
For those unfamiliar with it, a building''s a dream

whose building allows you to walk someone's thoughts,
whose walls frame a purpose each door lets you in on.
Welcome to your necks, your goosebumps,
to whatever''s excited inside you and jumps,
to your nervousness to be seen at night,
to your finding yourselves, here in the shade

at midday, when your footsteps lap the stone
and alone you enter that cool arcade,
built half in brick, half in what you've brought.
Welcome to you, who complete what''s begun
with your ears, your eyes, your fingers and tongues.
This building's only built when you come.



© Jacob Polley 2004