To give you a taster of the current issue here are extracts from a selection of the prose and poetry from Issue No 4.
Did you know about the gaura? I didn’t,
until I firmed in this small plant with finger-like leaves.
When the garden was dressed for the fête,
the gaura sat hugging the earth. Then,
up came a periscope stem;
slender wire arching a metre into air.
More shot up, and more still, all tipped,
with tiny white flowers, until, stems
disappearing in sunlight, a fountain of stars
showered the garden with light.
In the summer breeze, vying with whirling
butterflies and zigzagging bees,
the gaura startles with her festive Sardana
on membranaceous wings.
Clutch of ripe apples, white drapes, a tureen.
Today we will study each subtle nuance
of colour and tone. Be brave, take a chance,
compose a Cézanne from this simple scene.
Flame red, yellow ochre, viridian green;
we mix vibrant palette of sun-soaked Provence,
leave paper white where studio lights dance,
make cast-shadow greys with ultramarine.
Alchemist’s magic is rationed today:
lacklustre, opaque, like overripe plums
our pommes de Cézanne have failed to portray
crisp edible fruit a hand grasp away.
Ten mature students, as one we succumb;
reach out and consume our still-life display.
Caught between grapes and the throat in tangled
vine-weed; late summer storm in the lost sea
where wind and rain - cat of nine tails manacled
to mast - clatters the sky, tinpot grey
and spits pyrotechnics – our lunged gasps from
directions opposite, our sodden
flailing; groping on upturned fossil bed
for purchase; regained at tree’s ringed edge:
magic circle entered; to climb, then deck
dazed and jazzed - two separate shipwrecks -
in Juniper’s open arms. Pause; lift heads; eyes’
first meeting as hyper-volts split the sky.
Total meltdown - when points of the compass
fuse – in realtime was it ever like this?
You rush towards us, unthinking.
Our presence is sobering:
dark, naked, sexless creatures
persuading you to a slower pace.
By our absence of motion
you cannot ignore us.
Look at us, mere cut-outs
with our perfectly round, hairless heads,
our arms clamped like this forever.
Keeping guard, marking a spot.
Sometimes alone; in twos or in threes.
Black images of misery and pain,
our eyeless, speechless,
featureless silhouettes
more voluble even than those
withering bouquets
tied to fences, hung from railings.
Listen to us.
Our shadows that ran so surely ahead
are all we are now.
Outlines, standing solid
in cloudburst, sunlight and the dark,
our only work this dumb vigil,
our only duty to watch and warn.
Pity us, we 25
dead on this road since 1999.
I learned about Guillaume Le Conquérant in a two-room schoolhouse in Ligré. The next year, having returned to school in Canada, I discovered that Guillaume Le Conquérant was really William the Conqueror. Or, was it the other way around? All I knew for sure was that everything had been different in France, not just the 11th century kings of England, but us, me, my family, and life.
It was 1974, and I was eight years old. My father, a law school professor, had a sabbatical leave, and we came from Canada to France to live for the year. There were my mother and father; me, their eldest and only daughter; my middle brother, six years old, two years younger than me and adopted; my youngest brother, who turned two a few months after we arrived; and our au-pair, which was really just a fancy way to describe our babysitter from across the street back home in London, Ontario…..
Crouching down among the pebbles, she examined each one with a nostalgic tenderness, turning them over, feeling the edges, the thickness, the weight, as she had done before. Each one she picked up seemed to hold a memory inside, one that had been smoothed over and cast away among others. She scanned the speckled stretch of beach for the right shape, one she knew he would have been pleased with. She had learned to pick out the good ones with a sweep of her gaze, like a lighthouse beam. It had to be smooth, a sort of squashed oval, the size of an egg, flat, not too light, not too heavy, easy to clasp and curl fingers round, to unleash.
He had said, ‘That one’s too thin, but about the right size – if you find one a little sturdier. You see that edge, it won’t work as it’s not balanced … that one’s better. You’re getting the hang of this now. Are you tired? Here, watch.’
He had curled himself up so his elbows were pressed to his sides, his knees bent, then he turned towards the open sea, flicked his arm twice and released the stone with such speed that she was barely able to follow the movement. She had looked out to sea, watched as the small oval skipped once, twice, three times, then was just an ellipsis of water growing larger and larger until it melted into the undulations around it.
‘Do you feel really settled in now you two?’ asked Jim’s brother, Des, the last of their summer visitors, as he helped himself to another glass of Medoc. ‘You know, do you think you’ll stay here in Normandy?’
‘Do you mean, do we want to die here?’ Liz threw at him aggressively. ‘The truth is, well it’s marvellous in Summer, eating outside, all this lovely countryside and peace and quiet. The only thing you see on the road is an odd tractor now and then. Only… in the winter it can be a bit lonely, a bit primitive somehow. And of course, whilst it’s wonderful to be together so much – well, it’s a whole new life to be learned….’
‘Nonsense,’ said Jim, ‘that’s all superficial rubbish. This is where real life is, rediscovering rural skills, enjoying the natural world around us in a simple, unspoiled way. There’s always plenty to do in the garden: wood to chop for the fire, everything to keep tidy. It’s what I’ve always wanted, just Elizabeth and me, and a house in the country away from it all.’ …