Poems 1960-2000 by Fleur Adcock

net
    little flexible glass rockets
    and the lifted mesh always empty
    gauze and wire dripping sunlight
    She is too tall to stand under
    this house. It is a fantasy
    And moving in from the bright outskirts
    further under the shadowy floor
    hearing a footstep creak above
    her head brushing the rough timber
    edging further bending her knees
    creosote beams grazing her shoulder
    the ground higher the roof lower
    sand sifting on to her hair
    She kneels in dark shallow water,
    palms pressed upon shells and weed.

Immigrant
    November ’63: eight months in London.
    I pause on the low bridge to watch the pelicans:
    they float swanlike, arching their white necks
    over only slightly ruffled bundles of wings,
    burying awkward beaks in the lake’s water.
    I clench cold fists in my Marks and Spencer’s jacket
    and secretly test my accent once again:
    St James’s Park; St James’s Park; St James’s Park.

Settlers
    First there is the hill        wooden houses
    warm branches close against the face
    Bamboo was in it somewhere
    or another tall reed        and pines
    Let it shift a little
    settle into its own place
    When we lived on the mountain
    she said        But it was not
    a mountain        nor they placed so high
    nor where they came from a mountain
    Manchester        and then the slow seas
    hatches battened        a typhoon
    so that all in the end became
    mountains
                   Steps to the venture
    vehicles luggage bits of paper
    all their people fallen away
    shrunken into framed wedding groups
    One knows at the time it can’t be happening
    Neighbours helped them build a house
    what neighbours there were        and to farm
    she and the boy much alone
    her husband away in the town working
    clipping hair        Her heart was weak
    they said        ninety years with a weak heart
    and such grotesque accidents
    burns wrenches caustic soda
    conspired against she had to believe
    The waterfall        that was real
    but she never mentioned the waterfall
    After twelve years the slow reverse
    from green wetness        cattle        weather
    to somewhere at least        a township
    air lower than the mountain’s        calmer
    a house with an orchard        peach and plum trees
    tomato        plants their bruised scented leaves
    and a third life        grandchildren
    even the trip back to England at last
    Then calmer still and closer in
    suburbs        retraction into a city
    We took her a cake for her birthday
    going together        it was easier
    Separately would have been kinder
    and twice        For the same stories
    rain cold now on the southerly harbour
    wondering she must have been why
    alone in the house or whether alone
    her son in Europe        but someone
    a man she thought in the locked room
    where their things were stored        her things
    about her        china the boxwood cabinet
    photographs        Them’s your Grandpa’s people
    and the noises in the room        a face
    Hard to tell if she was frightened
    Not simple        no        Much neglected
    and much here omitted        Footnotes
    Alice and her children gone ahead
    the black sheep brother        the money
    the whole slow long knotted tangle
    And her fine straight profile too
    her giggle        Eee        her dark eyes

Going Back
    There were always the places I couldn’t spell, or couldn’t find on maps –
    too small, but swollen in family legend:
    famous for bush-fires, near-drownings, or just the standard pioneer
    grimness – twenty cows to milk by hand
    before breakfast, and then a five-mile walk to school.
    (Do I exaggerate? Perhaps; but hardly at all.)
    They were my father’s, mostly. One or two, until I was five,
    rolled in and out of my own vision:
    a wall with blackboards; a gate where I swung, the wind bleak in the