Fleur Adcock
Holiday Diaries, 1945 and 1971
That one sat in a soft prickly hayfield
writing her diary: ‘We visited a castle.
I have a stone from Lough Neagh, possibly marble
(see sketch on following page.)
Today is very hot again.
At lunch-time we went into a pub
and had milk mixed with soda-water.
Question: traditional Irish drink?’
This one sits in a white olive orchard
writing his diary. Dry silver trees,
bleached grass, cornflowers,
white road, silver stars
on the blue ceiling of a wayside shrine.
‘Today we went to San Damiano,
the church where Saint Francis hid from his father.’
And what would you say to that, Martha Brooks—
bringing the boy to a town full of Papists?
We must be the first among your children
to climb the worn shallow steps,
struggle back up the dusty road,
rest here. A cock crows at the farm.
Siesta-time is over, we say,
and move on up towards Assisi.
Martha, the boy is a good boy —
look at the blue eyes, the broad forehead —
and no more easily corrupted
by a taste of sanctity than I
all those years ago by holy Ireland —
not your phrase, I know, but your country:
which may all the saints protect now.
Page(s) 35-36
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The