Missing You was written mostly in the second year after [her husband] Peter's death, and it is about bereavement.

Missing You (parts 4 & 6)

 

4

The rainbow is not enough,
nor the flood

My eye can’t see enough,
nor my ear absorb sufficient silence

January is not enough,
nor June

Books are not enough,
nor the El Grecos

Christianity is not enough,
nor Judaism

China is not enough,
nor India

Good luck is not enough,
nor absolution from the bad

Jasmine is not enough,
nor the rose

Kingdoms are not enough,
nor the oldest city in the world,

without you

6

Like a tough Polish soldier
you put your clean shirt on wet

Like a rainbow without red,
you troubled the sky

You were my sower sowing wide,
my queue dans la bouche

You loved the top-knotted Islamic angels
with their steep wings of gold and blue

You preferred astronomer’s weather,
sciences of the birds

You were a prayer across the Orinoco,
a Tiber fitting me to perfection

from Redgrove’s Wife (Bloodaxe, 2006), © Penelope Shuttle 2006, used by permission of the author.

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