Penelope Shuttle Poems

I cast you into the waters.
Be lake, or random moon.

Be first light,
lifting up its beggar's cup.

I scatter your ashes.
Be the gale teaching autumn
to mend its ways,
or leopard so proud of his spotted coat.

Be the mentor of cherry trees.

I cast your dust far and wide,
a sower broadcasting seed:
Be wild rose or hellebore or all-heal.

Descend as a vein of silver,
never to be seen,
deep in the lynx-eyed earth.

Rise as barn owl white as dusk;
dove or raven marvelling at his flight.
Know different delights.
...

If we ever meet again,
and I don't see how we can,
it won't be on the Avenida del Poeta Rilke
in Ronda,
or by the banks of the green Guadalquiver
or in Granada
where the sunset goes on till midnight,
it won't be in any of those houses by the sea
we called our own,
or in the Plaza Abul Beka
where the house martins feed their fledglings
in mud-nests under the sills,
or in the square
where the foal above the fountain
watches his moon shadow
on the wall of an inn old when Cervantes knew it,
and it won't be up in the mountains
where at the hottest hour of the day
one hundred thin long-faced wild sheep
pour out of a cave, as from the underworld.

If I ever see you again
it won't be in the water mirrors
of the Alhambra
or in a building
that doesn't know if its a cathedral
or a mosque
or by the fountains of the Garden of the Poets
in the Alcazar Real
or in the dark oratory
where they keep the writing bones
of St Juan de la Cruz, gift-wrapped
in white ribbons.

And if I ever travel north,
you won't be sitting beside me
on the bus to Silverknowles,
Clovenhorn or Rosewell.

If I ever sleep with you again
it won't be in our own eager bed
or in that haunted hotel four-poster at Glastonbury,
on the drunken sleeper to Paddington
or on board the QE2 well below the waterline,

we won't sleep together
in any friend's spare bed
or on a neighbour's floor
after some burst pipe emergency
or in that hilarious sleepless bed
of our first year together,

no, if we ever meet again
(and how can we?)
it will be in a summer time has lost track of,
in a back-street hostal
hidden in a labyrinth of tiny white lanes,

two steps past the old Synagogue
and the dens of the silversmiths,
within the white walls
and behind the black window grilles
of The Repose of Baghdad,
still bearing, see it?
its faded sign of star and crescent moon.
...

After a year,

I put your black shoes out

for the re-cycler



Two pairs



Our walks go with them,

our days out,

our journeys



In the red casket of the bin

they wait as if for you,

but you're as far away as Dad,



whose new widow

keeps his suede brogues

on guard in the glass porch



to scare off intruders
...

Pity Redgrove's Wife?

I think not.



Praise Redgrove's Wife?

Why not?



Kiss n'snog Redgrove's Wife?

I dare not.



Be-jewel Redgrove's Wife?

With topaz and coral?

I will not.



Publish Redgrove's Wife?

I shall not.



(But I shall).



Forget Redgrove's Wife?

No, I have not.



Question Redgrove's Wife?

Not yet, not yet.



Confuse Redgrove's Wife?

I need not.



Fear Redgrove's Wife?

Oh fear not.



Dream of Redgrove's Wife?

Yes, night after night.



Translate Redgrove's Wife?

Why not,

she's not made of tin.



Amaze Redgrove's Wife?

Leave that to Redgrove.
...

An apple tree bent double with fruit
grew in the middle of the living room
shaking gently
as the average family pootled by with plates
or devices in their hands

The room was almost all tree
everyone edged round it
Curiously no one picked a single apple
nor did the ripe fruit ever fall

The full tree stood there
a daemon to behold

Who lives in that house now
I can't tell you
My childhood lives on there
and my parent shadows
and all my days and nights that will never bear fruit

The apple tree I speak of
roots itself partly in truth and partly in lies
Those roots are splinters of the true cross
They alone know why miracles are best avoided
...

Father Lear the king so shaped his bairns
with the wand's upper hand
the fire's swanny wing
smooth tippet of the spider

In the very kingdom of herbs and servants
he shaped them
from peace vessels of the animals
from toil of the flesh
from milk horses and the birds of sighed mercy
and the tongue undone

He shaped his bairns
in night's long harm and in day's bright psalter
in the seven courts of the north
and with the mild birch of the paternoster

From his ploughing fields and his sweat
his toothèd heart and his waxing wit
Father Lear the king shaped his bairns
for good or ill this he did
...

The North Esk is heading for Musselburgh,
The Fal for the blue respite of the Carrick Roads,
without haste the Thames is making for Tilbury,
and the Nile, from her headstream
as the Lovironzo branch of the Kagera
to her splendour in Egypt, is off
to that shopaholic, the Med;
but the Humber drags himself
towards the hard-faced cold North Sea;
the Severn descends from her perfect hills
into the loving arms of the Bristol Channel,
as does the ever-loving Avon,
while the Tamar slips unnoticed
into Plymouth Sound -
leaving the oldest city in Japan,
the Basho saddens into the Sea of Haiku,
and through ice, frost and snow
the Yenisei struggles towards the Kara Coast,
and the Alma can't get
the Crimean War out of his head;
the Seine grabs the Yone, the Marne and the Oise
by their neck-scruffs, to slum it
in the English Channel,
as that peasant rebel the Vendée
bolts for the Bay of Biscay;
the Ouse, the Yare
and the Waveney splash into the Wash
without a care in the world;
only the Danube is big enough
to make a difference to the Black Sea;
Poppa Rhine also proceeds to the North Sea,
majestic and wise,
shepherding before him the Neckar,
the Maine, the Moselle and Ruhr,
the Ijssel, the Lek and the Waal,
the Meuse and the Scheldt -
what a river!
Solitary and serene, the Po
follows his long tarnished shadow
to the Adriatic shore
and the green Mekong plays down
its cloudbursts, approaching the Yellow Sea...

Rivers, o rivers

Did I forget you, Ganges,
Whose opulent delta blesses the Bay of Bengal?

Did I forget you, Tigris and Euphrates,
who marry in the broken hills
above Basra
and upon whose banks stand Mosul
and Baghad,
rivers bearing time on their backs,
whose waters swell the blood-seas of history,
whose tides trounce the moon?

Did I forget you,
Euphrates, Tigris?
...

A jug of water
has its own lustrous turmoil

The ironing board thanks god
for its two good strong legs and sturdy back

The new fridge hums like a maniac
with helpfulness

I am trying to love the world
back to normal

The chair recites its stand-alone prayer
again and again

The table leaves no stone unturned
The clock votes for the separate burial of hearts

I am trying to love the world
and all its 8,000 identifiable languages

With the forgetfulness of a potter
I'm trying to get the seas back on the maps
where they belong

secured to their rivers

The kettle alone knows the good he does,
Here in the kitchen, loving the world,
Steadfastly loving

See how easy it is, he whistles
...

Very quickly the moon shuns
the massive domes and rounded arches
of Byzantium,
the centre-fold cities of America,
Russia's cross little citadels,
by-passes backmost lakes,
all waters, cornerstones of rivers,
moon rushing
over orchards of peach and plum,
shoving clouds before her
in a cosset of shadow,
dashing over linens
draped on tenement poles,
over all your old addresses,
skimming the brightness
from each port-of-call, carrying
tomorrow's news in her breast,
along with the latent weeping of all living things,
and glittering fast, very fast over the South Pole
where the key to understanding Art Nouveau resides,
over the great Alps
in their snowy hair-shirts
and over Europe, which she salutes in passing,
coming to rest above my garden,
bringing me, whether I like it or not,
the first rain of the summer-end
...

I was running out of time
or time was running out of me

I was no longer
decades of clear water

Time
was a cache of lions,
the end of all the birds

I was hurrying to catch up with Time,
while Time stayed home

doing the ironing,
folding his minutes,
smoothing his hours,

soon there'd be not a crumpled second
for me to hide in
...