Poems 1960-2000 (29 page)

On the curved staircase he embraced me.

‘You’ve got a ladybird in your hair.

Without hurting it, come closer,’

one of us said, in a daze of dream. 

But I thought we were in Jerusalem?

– That is indeed the name of this city.

It would be difficult to wind down further

below the ground than to this cave of birth. 

All the best dreams have a baby in them.

Year after year I give birth to my son.

Clutch him in his blanket, close in your arms;

the chill from the walls burns colder than marble. 

Here, children, are the pastel 50s for you:

everything, even to Bing Crosby’s trousers,

is powder-blue – if it isn’t petal-pink,

like Grace Kelly’s cashmere sweater. 

The name of the song is ‘True Love’.

We may have crooned it over your cradles.

The name of the age was ‘Innocence Incorporated’.

We bought it, along with the first LPs. 

Why do you think we turned out as we did? –

We, your parents, that is. You turned out OK:

you didn’t have to rebel against it;

you were only just being conceived. 

We dressed you in pink or blue,

popped nipples into your mouths (we were big on breast-feeding),

and cigarettes into our own (same thing),

then went to the next party. The jazz was good. 

Now you’re rebelling against our rebellions.

You haven’t been married as often as us.

Your kids have shrugged and taken to computers.

We worry about them; it’s what we do these days. 

Our parents worried about our divorces

(so Hollywood!) and then embarked on their own.

But we’ve had enough of Technicolor;

after all, we were conceived in black and white.

Half the things you did were too scary for me.

Skiing? No thanks. Riding? I’ve never learnt.

Canoeing? I’d be sure to tip myself out

and stagger home, ignominiously wet.

It was my son, that time in Kathmandu,

who galloped off with you to the temple at Bodnath

in a monsoon downpour, both of you on horses

from the King of Nepal’s stables. Not me. 

And as for the elephants – my God, the elephants!

How did you get me up on to one of those?

First they lay down; the way to climb aboard

was to walk up a gross leg, then straddle a sack

(that’s all there was to sit on), while the creature

wobbled and swayed through the jungle for slow hours.

It felt like riding on the dome of St Paul’s

in an earthquake. This was supposed to be a treat. 

You and Alex and Maya, in her best sari,

sat beaming at the wildlife, you with your camera

proficiently clicking. You were pregnant at the time.

I clung with both hot hands to the bit of rope

that was all there was to cling to. The jungle steamed.

As soon as we were back in sight of the camp

I got off and walked through a river to reach it.

You laughed, but kindly. We couldn’t all be like you. 

Now you’ve done the scariest thing there is;

and all the king’s horses, dear Meg, won’t bring you back.

My angel’s wearing dressing-up clothes –

her sister’s ballet-skirt, her mother’s top,

some spangles, a radiant smile. 

She looks as if she might take off

and float in the air – whee! But of course

you’ve guessed: she’s not an angel really. 

Her screeches when you try to dress her

make the neighbours think of child abuse.

She has to be in the mood for clothes. 

Once, for the sake of peace, when she wouldn’t even

part with her soggy night-time nappy,

I took her to the shops in her pyjamas. 

And what about the shoe she left on the train?

But then she sat like Cinderella,

serene and gracious, trying on the new ones. 

Has she been spoilt? Her big sister,

no less pretty, gave up the cuteness contest

and settled for being the sensible one. 

It’s tough being sister to an angel

(a burden I bore for years myself ),

but being an angel’s grandmother is bliss. 

I want to buy her French designer outfits.

Madness. It would be cheaper and more fun

to go to Paris. So we all do that. 

A special deal on Eurostar.

Halfway there, she comes to sit beside me

on Daddy’s knee, and stares into my face. 

‘Fleur,’ she says thoughtfully, ‘I love you.’

Wow! That’s angel-talk, no doubt of it.

Where can I buy her a halo and some wings?

Help! It's hidden my document,

and when I try to get it back,

tells me it's already in use.

It keeps changing the names of my files.

Why won't the Edit Menu appear?

It takes no notice of me. Help!

‘You have made changes which alter

the global template, Normal. Do you

want to save them?' Oh, please, no –

what have I altered? The ozone layer?

Help! But Help refuses to help;

the message goes on glaring at me.

There are some things you can't cancel –

or, if you have, you wish you hadn't.

‘This may damage your computer.'

What may? ‘Windows is closing down.'

But Windows isn't. Who can I ring

to rescue me, at nearly midnight?

Somehow, between us, we survive,

even though I've lost page 4

and all the margins have gone crazy.

What if I've bought the wrong scanner?

What if my printer's rather slow?

I'm getting rather slow myself.

It's nearly midnight once again,

and Windows isn't closing down –

nor do I want it to, just yet.

We're in it together. So be it.

I'll sit here, at the end of an age,

and wait for the great roll-over.

Poetry for the summer. It comes out blinking

from hibernation, sniffs at pollen and scents,

and agrees to trundle around with me, for as long

as the long days last, digesting what we discover

and now and then extruding a little package of words. 

They suggest I hold court in the Queen’s Temple

(hoping it doesn’t smell of urine).

Too exposed, I say; no doors or windows.

We settle for a room by the Powder Store (1805):

where else should poets meet but in a magazine? 

What was the creepiest thing about him?

The callousness? The flitting with fairies?

The detachable shadow? No,

that feature that was most supposed to entrance you:

the ‘little pearls’ of his never-shed milk-teeth. 

Queen Caroline, I think, planted these chestnuts

with their spiralling ridged bark. In another world

Peter and his freaky friends claimed this hollow one,

capacious enough for several children, if they dare,

to stand inside, holding their breath. Don’t try it!

A seagull on every post but one;

on the nearest post a heron.

Is he asleep? Stuffed, nailed to his perch?

He hunches a scornful shoulder, droops

an eyelid. Find out, fish! 

Now that there are no sparrows

what I feel landing on my outstretched hand

with a light skitter of claws

to snatch up a peanut and whirl off

are the coloured substitutes: great tits, blue tits. 

A crow in fancy dress

tricked out in pink and russet

with blue and black and white accessories

lurks in a tree, managing not to squawk

his confession: ‘I am not a nice bird.’ 

                                *

A cold day, for July, by the Serpentine.

She brings us up to date on her melanoma:

some capillary involvement, this time.

Just here is where her grandparents first met.

She still hopes to finish her family history. 

                               *

Don’t think I didn’t see you in the apple tree,

three of you, hanging out with the gang, your long tails

making the other tits look docked; and in the roses –

all that dangling upside-down work – feeding, I hope,

on aphids. Come any time. My garden’s all yours. 

                                *

This Winifred Nicholson card for my mother’s birthday,

because she loves Winifred Nicholson’s work –

or did, when she had her wits. Now, if all that’s forgotten,

she may at least perhaps like it, each new time

it strikes her: ‘That’s nice… That’s nice… That’s nice.’ 

                                *

‘You need a bolster,’ said the nurse, strapping a roll

of gauze under my nose, when my dressings threatened

to bleed into my soup. I sat up in bed

insinuating the spoon under my bloody moustache

and crowing internally: after all that, real life. 

The Monarch caterpillars were crawling away,

having stripped bare the only plant they could fancy.

We raced to the Garden Centre for two more,

and decked them with stripy dazzlers – lucky to have hatched

in NZ and not in the GM USA.

In my love affair with the natural world

I plan to call quits before it all turns sour:

before the last thrush or the last skylark,

departing, leaves us at each other’s throats,

I intend to be bone-meal, scattered. 

Goodbye, summer. Poetry goes to bed.

The scruffy blue tits by the Long Water are fed

for the last time from my palm – with cheese, not bread

(more sustaining). The chestnut blossoms are dead.

The gates close early. What wanted to be said is said.