Memory

Transformation 4

from Rimbaud's Les Illuminations

Look, there’s my alien childhood, ashen, cold, Sunk, dead now, lain behind that flowering rose, And I, your mother, Memory, who’ve come down And found you here, know now that no surprise Can shake me more, from this, my weariest of purposes. This white worn flight of steps I have descended Was my life also. Here, my journey’s ended. My birth, your younger brother, waits below The sunset, to be crushed. You I was, child, Our homes and haunts have been shut down, and chilled Swarms of dead bees piled high around them. Walls Block all inside but tops of trees, too high for insight. Their keys have been thrown away, because we’ve died. Anyway, nothing exists to see inside. Look, the field slopes golden to the villages,                           The lock gates open, buzzing rainbow hives Sail past haystacks, and windmills chime on wind, Stopping time on their calvaries. Hay, hooves Of flowers and fabled beasts once quietly drummed                                                                  that hillside. Over seas – eternities of hot tears, Cloud masses groaned afar, and meshed in years.

Frances Richards, 'Childhood 2', from Les Illuminations, lithographs, Curwen Press, London, 1975 © estate of Frances Richards