Authors: Helen Dunmore
Long long I have looked for you,
snowshoeing across the world
across the wild white world
with my heart in my pocket
and my black-greased boots
to keep the cold out,
past cathedrals and pike marshes
I’ve tracked you,
so long I have looked for you.
In your star-blue palace
I wandered and could not find you
in your winter garden
I picked icicles,
my fingers burned on your gate
of freezing iron
I have the pain
of it yet on my palm,
through clanging branches
and black frost-fall
I dared not call
so I slide above worlds of ice
where the fishes kiss
and the drowned farmer
whips on his cart
through bubbles of glass
and his dogs prance
at the tail-end, frozen
with one leg cocked
and their yellow urine
twined in thickets of ice.
I stamp my boot
and the ice booms.
I have looked so long
I am wild and white
as your creatures, I might
be one of your own.
It starts with breaking into the wood
through a wave of chestnut leaves.
I am grey as a spring morning
fat and fuzzy as pussy willow,
all around I feel them simmering
those nests I’ve laid in,
like burst buds, a hurt place
lined for the young who’ve gone
unfledged to the ground.
There they splay, half-eaten
and their parents see nothing
but the one that stays.
This is the weather that cuckoos love:
the breaking of buds,
I am grey in the woods, burgling
the body-heat of birds,
riding the surf of chestnut flowers
on spread feathers.
I love the kiss of a carefully-built nest
in my second of pausing –
this is the way we grow
we cuckoos,
if you think cuckoos never come back
we do. We do.
Where have you been, my little daughter
out in the wild weather?
I have met with a sailor, mother,
he has given me five clubs for juggling
and says I must go with him for ever
.
Oh no, my treasure
you must come in and stay for ever
for you are the butcher's daughter.
Where have you been, my little daughter
in the winter weather?
I have met a man of war, mother,
he has given me four hoops to dance through
and he says I must love him for ever
.
Oh no, my treasure
you must come in and shut the door
for you are the butcher's daughter.
Where have you been, my little daughter,
out in stormy weather?
I have met with a prince, mother,
he has given me three promises
and I must rule his heart for ever
.
Oh no, my treasure
you must give back his promises
for you are the butcher's daughter.
Where have you been, my little daughter
in the wild of the weather?
I have spoken to a wise man, mother,
who gave me knowledge of good and evil
and said I must learn from him for ever
.
Oh no, my treasure
you have no need of his knowledge
for you are the butcher's daughter.
Where have you been, my little, daughter
out in the summer weather?
I have met with a butcher, mother,
and he is sharpening a knife for me
for I am the butcher's daughter
.
The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost,
it is a ghost of dammed-up streams,
it is a ghost of slow walks home
and sunburn and blackberry stains.
The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost.
It is the ghost of low-grade land,
it is the ghost of lovers holding hands
on evening strolls out of town.
The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost.
It is the ghost of mothers at dusk calling,
it is the ghost of children leaving their dens
for safe houses which will cover them.
See this ’un here, this little bone needle,
he belonged to the net menders
.
I heard the crackle in your throat
like fishbone caught there, not words.
And this other ’un, he’s wood, look
,
you said to the radio interviewer
and I couldn’t see the fine-fashioned needle
or the seams on your face,
but I heard the enormous hiss of herring
when they let the tailboard down
and the buyers bargaining
as the tide reached their boots,
I heard the heave of the cart, the herring girls’
laugh as they flashed their knives –
Such lovely voices we all had
you ought t’ have heard us
singing like Gracie Fields
or else out of the hymn book
.
Up to your elbows, you gutted
your pile of herring. The sludge
was silver, got everywhere.
Your hands were fiery and blooded.
from the slash and the tweak and the salt
and the heap of innards for the gulls.
I’d put a little bit o’ bandage round these fingers
–
you can see where they been nicked
,
we had to keep going so quick
we could never wear gloves
.
When I held you up to my cheek you were cold
when I came close to your smile it dissolved,
the paint on your lips was as deep
as the steaming ruby of beetroot soup
but your breath smelled of varnish and pine
and your eyes swivelled away from mine.
When I wanted to open you up
you glowed, dumpy and perfect
smoothing your dozen little selves
like rolls of fat under your apron
and I hadn’t the heart to look at them.
I knew I would be spoiling something.
But when I listened to your heart
I heard the worlds inside of you spinning
like the earth on its axis spinning.
Tall ship hanging out at the horizon
tall ship blistering the horizon
you’ve been there so long
your sheets and decks white
in the sun
what wind whispers you in?
Tall ship creaking at the horizon
your captain long gone
your crew in the cabin
drinking white rum
their breath spiralling
what wind breathes you in?
Tall ship tilting to the shoreline
past Spanish palms
tall ship coming in like a swan
in the midday sun
what wind blows you in?
It is the cool
wind of the morning
stirring my masts
before the sun
burns it to nothing,
they call it
breeze of ghosts
.
(1983)
In the goods yard the tracks are unmarked.
Snow lies, the sky is full of it.
Its hush swells in the dark.
Grasped by black ice on black
a massive noise of breathing
fills the tracks;
cold women, ready for departure
smooth their worn skirts
and ice steals through their hands like children
from whose touch they have already been parted.
Now like a summer
the train comes
beating the platform
with its blue wings.
The women stir. They sigh.
Feet slide
warm on a wooden stairway
then a voice calls and
milk drenched with aniseed
drawls on the walk to school.
At last they leave.
Their breathless neighbours
steal from the woods, the barns,
and tender straw
sticks to their palms.
A cow here in the June meadow
where clouds pile, tower above tower.
We lie, buried in sunburn,
our picnic a warm
paper of street tastes,
she like a gold cloud
steps, moony.
Her silky rump dips
into the grasses, buffeting
a mass of seed ready to run off in flower.
We stroll under the elder, smell
wine, trace blackfly along its leaf-veins
then burning and yawning we pile
kisses onto the hot upholstery.
Now evening shivers along the water surface.
The cow, suddenly planted stands – her tender
skin pollened all over –
ready to nudge all night at the cold grasses,
her udder heavily and more heavily swinging.
At Great Neck one Easter
were Scott
Ring Lardner
and Zelda, who sat
neck high in catalogues like reading cards
her hair in curl for
wild stories, applauded.
A drink, two drinks and a kiss.
Scott and Ring both love her –
gold-headed, sky-high Miss
Alabama. (The lioness
with still eyes and no affectations
doesn’t come into this.)
Some visitors said she ought
to do more housework, get herself taught
to cook.
Above all, find some silent occupation
rather than mess up Scott’s vocation.
In France her barriers were simplified.
Her husband developed a work ethic:
film actresses; puritan elegance;
tipped eyes spilling material
like fresh Americas. You see
said Scott they know about work, like me.
You can’t beat a writer for justifying adultery.
Zelda
always wanted to be a dancer
she said, writhing
among the gentians that smelled of medicine.
A dancer in a sweat lather is not beautiful.
A dancer’s mind can get fixed.
Give me a wooden floor, a practice dress,
a sheet of mirrors and hours of labour
and lie me with my spine to the floor
supple secure.
She handed these back too
with her gold head and her senses.
She asks for visits. She makes herself hollow
with tears, dropped in the same cup.
Here at the edge of her sensations
there is no chance.
Evening falls on her Montgomery verandah.
No cars come by. Her only visitor
his voice, slender along the telephone wire.
The traffic halted
and for a moment
the broad green avenue
hung like a wave
while a woman crossing
stopped me and said
‘Can you show me my wedding?
– In which church is it going to be held?’
The lorries hooted at her
as she stood there on the island
for her cloak fell back
and under it her legs were bare.
Her hair was dyed blonde
and her sad face deeply tanned.
I asked her ‘What is the name of your husband?’
She wasn’t sure, but she knew his first name was Joe,
she’d met him in Poland
and this was the time for the wedding.
There was a cathedral behind us
and a sign to the centre of the town.
‘I am not an expert on weddings,’
I said, ‘but take that honey-coloured building
which squats on its lawns like a cat –
at least there’s music playing inside it.’
So she ran with her heels tapping
and the long, narrow folds of her cloak falling apart.
A veil on wire flew from her head,
her white figure ducked in the porch and blew out.
But Joe, the Polish man. In the rush of this town
I can’t say whether she even found him
to go up the incense-heavy church beside him
under the bridal weight of her clothes,
or whether he was one of the lorry drivers
to whom her brown, hurrying legs were exposed.