The Love Procession

By Suzanne Edgar

In The Love Procession Suzanne Edgar again focuses on art, the natural world and the intimacy of love and loss. Her poems deliver emotional intelligence and humour with unobtrusive skill that blends form and content in beguiling ways.

George Thomas has praised the book’s ‘impressive clarity, concision, pungency and mus

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Jul 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781760411725

Suzanne Edgar

Suzanne Edgar is a versatile Canberra writer. She has published successful short fiction, essays, and literary criticism in addition to much well-received poetry. Suzanne was on the editorial staff of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, to which she has contributed fifty-three articles. Her poems have been included in Best Australian Poems, Black Inc., 2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2015. Her short fiction: Canberra Tales (with Seven Writers), Penguin, 1988, reprinted as The Division of Love, Penguin, 1995; Counting Backwards, UQP, 1991. Her poetry books: The Painted Lady (Indigo, 2006, reprinted 2007); The Love Procession, Ginninderra Press, 2012 (both books were short-listed for the ACT Writing & Publishing Awards); Still Life (Picaro Press, 2012).

Book preview

The Love Procession

The Love Procession

Suzanne Edgar

Ginninderra Press

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

The Love Procession

Acknowledgements

Also by Suzanne Edgar

The Love Procession

ISBN 978 1 76041 172 5

Copyright © text Suzanne Edgar 2012

Cover image: Attributed to Marco del Buono and Giovanni di Apollonio, Love procession [Corteo d’amore] c.1440s, tempera on wood panel, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

Bequest of Antonietta Noli, widow of Carlo Marenzi 1901, 58 AC 00012

Image courtesy of Comune di Bergamo-Accademia Carrara

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All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be sent to the publisher at the address below.

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First published 2012

Reprinted 2016

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Ginninderra Press

PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide 5015

www.ginninderrapress.com.au

for Peter

The Love Procession

‘Corteo d’amore’ (Love procession)

attrib. Marco del Buono & Apollonio di Giovanni c.1440s, Italy

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A crowd in ceremonial red, well-dressed,

walks side by side in pairs: sedate and chaste,

their hands are crossed and held below the waist,

all signs of levity have been suppressed.

The leaders are a grey-beard and a maid,

a father with his daughter to be wed.

Imagine the groom who waits some way ahead,

unsure if he’s elated or afraid

and quaking in the shadows near the gate.

He prays he will prove equal to the role

demanded of him by this civic band

advancing fast: no time to hesitate.

To bed the girl had always been his goal

but laughing in the square, she’d seemed less grand.

A Conversation

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Painting, he says,

makes me rich

without any money,

makes me glad

without any friends.

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A poem, he says,

lets me sing

without a choir,

lets me dance

all by myself.

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The bush, he adds,

makes me smile

without a joke,

makes me strong

without any work.

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Love, I reply,

love warms my bones

without a fire,

it’s a journey I take

without leaving home.

Two Pianists

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These summer nights I seem to hear

my father play for me,

singing along melodiously.

His outstretched arms are pale,

a tide of thinning hair recedes…

He’s bored with family life,

claims it fails to meet his needs

and home has now become

more like a net, in which he’s caught.

The music, a last resort.

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Brought on a cargo ship from Berlin,

our crate of walnut piano

arrived a hundred years ago.

Upright for most of his life,

my father grew a little bolder,

stayed out late at night

when shown the back of a cold shoulder

by a wife who’d had enough.

I won’t forget the sound of him

playing favourite hymns.

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My husband plays the Rheinberg now:

some jazz and Jelly Roll

then the blues, a bit of soul,

that thing from Acker Bilk

I love, ‘Stranger on the Shore’.

It always melts my thighs

until I sigh, ‘Again. Encore!’

He has the hands. Undone,

and rising from my mother’s chair,

I bend to kiss his hair.

The Lovers

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i Ourselves

Switching off the bedside lamps

with tacit drowsy consent

we sigh, content, and close our eyes,

roll towards the centre.

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Knees move up until we touch,

hands reach out to meet,

mine inside your larger one.

Our breathing blends and slows.

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Under the rounded shell of the quilt

and settled, facing in,

our bodies form two halves of a nut,

complex, neat, compact.

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And if in strange or fretful dreams

we shudder in restless sleep,

naked feet respond and slide

across to