Amsterdam 1995

All night the trapped and thin-skinned cats

race and clatter the pine boards like rats.

The neighbours play Mah-jong.

Across the frozen balcony a blur

of dark heads seen through steamy glass.

Tiles click and rattle in fast argument.

In the cold shadow of fine-gabled roofs

the melancholy mirror curves

                         of Prinsengracht

                         of Herengracht

conceal the stuffy `brown` cafes,

and stiff and swaddled babies gaze

from improvised and silent sleds

                         on Prinsengracht

                         on Herengracht.

`Take him to see the Anne Frank house`, you said,

`he`s old enough to understand.`

Instead, I hold his hand.

(He will allow this in cold weather, far from home).

I speak of her a little, lose the map.

We crawl on packed ice to hot soup and art,

the rough and costly sunflowers of Provence

warm my cold feet,

soothe my sad heart.

Autoroute `La Provencale`

A rope-walk dipped in concrete,

slung across gorges.

Sliding through rock,

a race-track slaloms down the harsh Garrigue.

It`s gone midnight.

Above us sparkling numbers clock,

suspend each second.

Timeless in ink-blue hills, the fortress village

defend a patois hard as stone.

A local calendar declares

the blessing of the lavender and corn,

and then a steady, unerotic dance -

plain faces scourged by coifs like nuns on holiday.

Beneath the chestnuts old scores settle with the dust

as, fingering the boules` etched lines,

old men bend at the knee and toss.

Steps worn glass-smooth are buffed by children who,

defying the closed shutters and the heat,

stage water-fights at every rusty tap,

while in a cool and vaulted room

a girl sits trimming thyme

to scent a thousand civil servants` stews.

Far, far below, down on the crowded coast,

dust, petrol and the smell of melon rind

patina every terracotta wall.

Cacti like netted squid spawn from the rocks,

land-lubbered starfish grow from every cleft.

Yet in the small hours of the southern night

on both sides of this moving thread of light

striped feral cats and pearly lizards hunt

under a grenadine moon.

Villa Hubert, Cap d`Ail

In July the leaves crack when they fall.

Bay, lemon or olive, all

curl and dry fast in the heat, then `claque`

onto concrete.

The snap of laburnum pods splitting.

My folding chair is pale pistachio green,

I read a cheap French magazine.

Time to rever old heroes -

Aragon and his Elsa, fugitive in the Drome

fifty years ago.

(He looks calm in the photo, she a little stern,

hair pulled back off her face with a comb.

Advertisements for beer fill up the space.)

You squeeze a lemon taken from a tree.

I sweat gently.

`Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair` -

the sacrament of Sunday

repeated and repeated.

The villa quietly gathers dust.

Its pink walls bleach, blanch and peel

through the long ministry of sun,

the short and frenzied rain.

A smudge of terracotta laps the sill.

Black beetles run under the trees,

lizards rest on the stubble, and

the  violet Morning Glory creeps

another arm`s length

across the broken footings of the vinery.

I stumble on a root.

A single shoot snakes along baked earth,

Intent on strangling.

In an English notebook now

I sketch the curly fancies of the garden gate,

foxed by their symmetry.

Walking from cool tiles to dull parquet

I catch an image out of place -

even in mottled glass I stay

too pink and fair to share this enigmatic space

with dark French ghosts.

I can remember, not so long ago,

coming on tiny grand`mere and two whiskery aunts

under the date palm.

These vigilantes of the house,

well corsetted for dignity,

pulled papery discs off brittle Honesty.

Three tattered hats hang on a dangling peg.

A bunch of dry stalks stands in a pewter pot

milling a fine white dust.

Kokkinos Pyrgos

My holiday diary’s a poor thing.

Mundane notes – a schoolgirl’s gush.

‘Arrived Heraklion 2pm. Hot!

To mountains. Tea in village. Donkeys!’

But later,

Reading these stock accounts of each extraordinary day,

Images play on my mind.

‘Ate at fish taverna.’

A tiny cat slaps a cicada on grey oval stones.

The tamarisk trees, splashed white, are strung with light.

Walking home,

We hear a lyre’s plucked song

And harsh stray lines from sagas eagle old.

‘Took mountain road to Akoumia – hairpin bends.’

At the precipice edge an old woman leads from her mule

 a donkey one side, a goat the other.

 Wedged in a load of twigs she waves…

‘Home very late.’

a strum of crickets leads us through each dark bend..

Above, the soft streak of a billion stars,

A smudge of yellow marks the next village.

‘Stopped for orange juice at Agios Varveras’

Across the dusty street shepherds play shish-besh.

In Sunday best – fringed caps, high boots and breeches.

A worry bead of priests loll in the best café.

Revisiting Roussos

Midday.

The silence of a monastery village:

Just the soft bump of a ripe fig

Bursting on stone,

A flicker of air sending dead leaves scuttling

Like dormitory mice.

I pray the nuns are sleeping as,

Arms and legs bare,

I push against the church door

And slip inside.

The timeless midnight-blue of painted walls,

Icons, bossed gold, silver and black,

Enclose grave, oval faces, almond-eyed.

One difference: the space is filled

With geometries of stone –

A new tomb,

Set with a tilted book-leaf headstone,

Its cut lines softened

With sprinkled petals – tender chaste confetti –

And her photograph:

An old,old woman from a plain order,

Smiling at the world.

Over the arched door, one word:

METAMORPHOSIS.

`Digging Potatoes`: A Painting by Anton Mauve

I wake to cold and dark.

My heavy dress crackles.

The air before dawn`s dense -

I push through it - could cut it with a knife.

The sky`s sealed like the inside of an egg.

No frost reflects the ugly yellow light,

but cock-crow and a scattering of cats

insist this day will break.

Cold to the bone, 

I set the blackened pot on last night`s coals

then blow them into life;

move heavily across the packed mud floor

glad of the dog`s rough coat against my feet,

his warmth, his silence.

He`ll run to the potato fields today,

to watch and pant

as we three hack the frozen clods away.

It`s time to make a thin and bitter brew:

grind the bright beans counted out with thrift,

tip silt into a chipped enamel jug

then - daily sorcery - pour scalding water on

and reel, as every morning, from the smell

that kicks the blood from sleep.

I tuck the sacking round my waist and trudge -

a scarf tied nun-like round my hidden hair -

to bend and scrabble in the Breton mud.

A pig rooting acorns.