Losing a friend - In 2004 we had our beloved, brave horse Patou euthanized. Inevitably, witnessing a death makes you think about dying, about loss of loved ones, about losing your partner. Patou had been Estelle’s main horse, and I wrote Before You Turn Your Face and Go Away for her. Our farm is set below the ancient ruined Chateau de Fressac in the foothills of the Cevennes. The Chateau, partly built in the 8th century in post-Roman Languedoc, and completed in the 13th century for the Crusades, must have seen a lot of deaths: “the ghosts who skitter down the hill” in my poem. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but it is fun to pretend. I imagined that, whichever of us goes first, we will eventually be reunited in death, and “fly together, dove and dove”. If only...

    BEFORE YOU TURN YOUR FACE AND GO AWAY

It was as quiet as barn or crypt in there,
The alley door asleep against the chill,
And stone-cold ghosts whipped down the granite hill,
Its oaks and broken fortress all bone-bare.

                               Some day in far-off meadow or white room
                               Perhaps I’ll stroke your cheek, kiss you and say,                                                                     Before you turn your face and go away,                               
                             Thank you - for hauling me from ordained gloom. 

The mistral blew, the alley door stayed tight.
Stock-still he stood, his tired bones and heart
And gaze all stoical. He did not start
When gloved arm probed. His eyes were just half-bright.

                              Some day on some stone floor or stair or bed
                               Perhaps you’ll cool my brow, kiss me and give
                               Me drink. I’ll whisper thanks; the will to live
                               Less sweet, I’ll slip to nothing, sweet and dead. 

Thank you, you whispered, kissing him once more,
And left us three to take a gallow’s walk.
The kindly executioner did not talk
But gently held ajar the alley door.

                                Some day down path or corridor we’ll go,
                               One on foot, the other boxed and still,
                               To join the ghosts who skitter down the hill –
                               The ghosts we knew and ones we both shall know.

We shuffled to a fine and private place.
OK bébé, I whispered, stroking him.
His eyes were heavy now, and milky-dim.
Before he fell I kissed his good old face.

                                Some day we’ll fly together, dove and dove,
                               Perhaps, my dearest partner, some day soon;
                              Perhaps, my darling, by the bowling moon
                               Or spinning sun. Who cares. The sky’s all love.

 Ocoa is the stage name of a dancer-clown-actress-singer-poet whom I met in Bogota, Columbia, in 1979. She was always smiling and positive about the future of her country, despite the terrifying poverty, crime and mess all around.

          SONG FOR OCOA

        In an aeroplane, after Bogota 

            Under the blue, this blue spread of water,
            Under the blue there are eyes:
            Eyes oiled in brine
            Film in pale, shifty blinks
            The sea stills, the dead freezes,
            The frieze of the deep, still sea.

            Behind the sea in Bogota -
            Where playtime is cut-throat in shadows,                   
            In leather dust, donkey must, where
            A city is folded, half-cooked in filth,
            Stuffed empanada of dirty small legs
            Tripping trolleys or donkeys
            Or grey by the sacks of scraps
            Or still in the grey dusty gutters
            Where blood is mud and grey in a day -
            Behind the sea in Bogota,
            Ocoa sees pictures.

            Ocoa the dancer, Ocoa sees pictures,
            Ocoa the singer, Ocoa sees pictures,
            Ocoa the poet, Ocoa sees pictures,
            Ocoa the queen is a clown.


            Under the blue, this blue spread of water,
            Under the blue there are wars:
            There is pain, there is blood
            In the blue, there are teeth
            In the roaring, muffling mouth,
            In the baffled throat of the sea.

            Behind the sea in Bogota
            Where dusk is rhythms of rage
            In the streets, in the files of men, where
            The rank and vile pavements are startled
            With hands, grey hands,
            That ask, that need, that take -
            Bogota, Bogota, Bogota - my guitar,
            My white gringo fingers, play Bogota
            Its Fall, dead-fingered leaves
            Falling dry, falling cracked,
            Broken chords at Montserrat's foot.

            Ocoa the dancer, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the singer, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the poet, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the queen is a clown.


            Under the blue, this blue spread of water,
            Under the blue there are whims:
            Red hesitations,
            Yawned inspirations,
            Capitulations (te quiero,
            Te quiero, te quiero...)

            Behind the sea in Bogota
            Where morning was sweet with games,
            Ocoa the Clown makes faces, her body
            Is painting a song, and she feels
            For her voice, for her place, her heaven,
            And melts herself with a scream
            In the wind, the wind that plays
            Bogota down the beat
            Of the poncing boys on the pavements
            Flung with umbrellas
            And broken, festering fig sweets.

            Ocoa the dancer, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the singer, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the poet, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the queen is a clown.


            Under the blue, this blue spread of water,
            Under the blue there are dances:
            Teasing and weaving are bobbins of silver,
            Flags of all colours flirting
            Or furled and unquestioning partners
            Embraced in quick black snaps.

             Behind the sea in Bogota
            Ocoa sees the creviced roads,
            Ocoa sees the wretched wrecks
            Of houses, tastes the smells,
            The meat, the dust, the sweets, the boys,
            The thieves, the rain, the caracol
            Of industrial dew that sweats
            On the broken stones of Bogota;
            And klaxons curse, the air is hell
            And slashed with sound and savage
            On Ocoa's laughing eyes.

            Ocoa the dancer, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the singer, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the poet, Ocoa makes pictures,
            Ocoa the queen is a clown.