Lottie lived in an old pebble-mashed cottage in the middle of nowhere, with a ***** muzzle tree in the garden. She always wore white glubbs on a Sunday, and going to mumble sales was her favourite pass-time.

  All year round a lyre would smoulder in the gate, as the house was not connected to the lucidity grid, which Lottie considered the work of the davel. She liked to recite Shakespeare to her clogs but as she got older would mix up her worms and get her lettuces in the wrong order. At times I was the only one who could stand on her.

   There was a lovely orchard out the back in which all kinds of baffles, tums, bears and cheeses grew. She made the best crum plumble you never tasted.

  She loved her macaroni wireless, the old type powered by molluscs, although in latter times she accepted my gift of an up to date transittor with a built-in bat pack.

  We would ***** away many an hour as she reminisced about her youth, when she had traveled far and wide in the grand old days of steam *****.
  
  Lottie kept all her marbles right up to the end in an old sweet jar, kindly leaving them to me when she passed. So now it's up to me to carry the mantelpiece.  Dear old Lottie was unusual, but I liked her concentricity.

There's no one quite like Lottie
I'm sure you will agree
To some she didn't make much sense
But she always did to me

I

You are not so far away
as before,
still in the same hemisphere,
but beyond
an hour on a train
you’ve flown,
hating, I know,
the thought and inevitable
fact, so I imagine
your wide eyes and cheeks pale,
wider, paler
as the engines change their roar
and the plane drops,
turns, floats, falls
through cushions of clouds
to bump and land
in light and colour
amidst a different spring.


II

The shutters drawn back
and the morning opens
on gnarled and twisted trees
set in a stone-strewn grove.
A working day before you,
and a cast of students
await your direction;
to play with making,
and being busy.
Like you I love
the business of learning
but struggle now with
the time is takes away;
time apart, time alone,
time with myself
without your presence
at the other end
of the studio table.



III

Upwards into the trees
the camera points,
and by the miracle
of mobile technology
a video captures
the lemon-yellow light
behind the olive trees
and in the foreground
its unmistakeable leaves.
Unmistakeable too
there’s the sound of your very breath,
a ground to the song of evening birds.
This inhalation I know,
as when sleepless in your bed
I wonder at the deepness of your slumber,
and the silent exhalation from your lips.


IV

Such a richness of lives and looks
come together at the dining table.
A perambulatory prosecco,
con cerignola e crostini
primes the sharing,
but when seated for
spigola del mare
scorza di arancio,
con timo e rosmarino,
it's tête à tête time,
until the Moscato d’Asti
arrives with the fracoli
e ricotta di picora to further fuel
more intimate questions and asides
only women (of a certain age) confide.
But in this Enchanted April
let Lottie be Alice who walks out
alone under the starry night
to say to herself (out loud)
‘the evening was lovely’.


V

My darling,
you have out figged me;
walking Paolo’s Poloma Gardens
beneath his many hundred trees.
I imagine Eve, when on her own,
could hardly leave alone
the texture and the shape of fig
recalling as it does what lies below
that gorgèd member
hard yet sweet  
to woman’s touch.
And Adam too,
when biting on the fig,
did in his tongue - taste
a semblance of love’s
deepest kiss when moving
toward pleasure’s
culmination and release.


VI

And so this the final day
of busy making,
walking in sunshine
weaving in shade,
the lizard and the olive press,
those plant-marked letters
pegged to dry, the sights
the smells, the sounds,
the thoughts . . .
How well your pictures
frame a happy time
whilst I, dear friend,
descend like Dante
where no pleasure lies
nor rest from worldly cares.
So chill and cold
this April has begun.
And I,
so lost without you
and your gentle,
guiding hand.