The hottest weeks in Cornwall we had ever known -
she became a painter
overnight.
Never dreamed it!
Such promise shown
in a sticky wash of
colour and light.
She became a painter
overnight.
Grey cliffs,
impressionistic sea
in a sticky wash of
colour and light,
mixing oils, for
posterity.
Grey cliffs,
impressionistic sea.
Look – we’ve
framed it now – our Di,
mixing oils, for
posterity,
Sand, surf and sky.
Look – we’ve
framed it now – our Di,
at seventeen,
Sand, surf and sky,
her only painting it
has been,
at seventeen.
Never dreamed it!
Such promise shown!
Her only painting it
has been,
the hottest weeks in
Cornwall we had ever known.
A Venetian walking one
day with the crowds
of tourists took a
short-cut down a street,
half-running till he
reached the Grand Canal.
Where had he moored
his precious gondola?
With anger in his eyes
he scanned the water -
Nowhere. As he looked
up at the bridge,
he thought, perhaps I
left it near the Bridge
of Sighs? And
again wrestling with the crowds,
he reached the place
and looked down at the water,
to no avail. Once
more in the street
he gestured to the
air, “My gondola!
Where have I left you?
On which canal?”
remembering a night on
the canal
recently; a lady on
the bridge
who pleaded for a free
ride in his gondola;
he beckoned to her; as
she left the crowds,
turning, she waved to
someone in the street,
and stepped below.
Her white dress brushed the water,
he lifted her, and set
her down. The water -
how cool it was!
Caressing the canal,
they left the fret and
bustle of the street,
serenely floating
under every bridge,
silently swaying,
watched by the crowds.
He was an expert with
the gondola.
And later, sitting by
her in the gondola,
he trailed his fingers
with hers in the water,
dusk in the air; no
longer any crowds.
He’d moored the
craft on the Grand Canal
or so he thought, or
was it beyond the Bridge
of Sighs? An
unfamiliar street,
when fortified by wine
bought in that street,
they’d lost all
sense of time. The gondola,
a downy bed beneath
the darkening bridge,
stayed fast but seemed
to sink into the water
as if they’d
found an underground canal,
a twilight world away
from daytime crowds.
He crossed another
bridge and, with the crowds,
jostled down the
street to the canal.
There floating on the
water was his gondola.
The old railway track, become a rubbish tip,
broken glass glints
under my feet.
The banks of grass
like mangy fur,
ragged robin fluff on
the air -
a shady valley; I
walked alone,
between bushes and
recent puddles,
in strange sunlight.
The smelly tunnel
made of half-bricks
domed, and circular
like half a barrel;
the murkiness inside it!
I almost crawled as in
a narrowing cave
believing in the point
of light that blinded.
Hot, shaded by the
trees, secret, alone,
I became unhappiness
until the end of tears.
© Rachel Martin 2001-2002
Last updated 11 December 2002