Shearsman 62: Brian Louis Pearce: "Corfu with an Umbrella"

Shearsman 62

Brian Louis Pearce

Corfu with an Umrella

Waves, red sail, boy fishing;
girl watching, hair brushed back
by the beach breeze, gusting

after the poet's cap.
Waves sough the pebbles in
sequence; rock boy casts his

rod of shadow and sun,
stiff, still, and hard pressed, glistening
brown sculpture, lithe as an

up-country piscator
with a spear. Inland,
the coy lake leaks, cicadas

message the shore's mosquitoes.
The stiff brush brush of the
poplars below the pass

spells for donkey and scooter
shade on the way to the grave.
Waves of heat; daze of leaves:

the leafy sails that are the
parasols of Corfu,
one for each voyager;

the salmon pimpernel
and lemon butterfly,
await you at the oak.

As waves reach for the beach,
so the cypresses go up
in pairs toward the peaks. Saints

at the rail receive girls
with infants at hip from the
back of the church. Straight, supple,

the girls, hair brushed back, gaze fixed
on the Metropolitan,
except when one laughs or plays

with a child's finger. The early
icon of the Virgin's one:
boy, poet, stop to look.

Bait bikinis that fish
the beach at noon in high
season are nothing to this.

I, who have sat below
the wall at Kaniaro;
climbed above the old harbour

at Kerkyra the steep
Antivouniotissa steps;
looked down them on the blue

bay framed by the door: I
speak what I know, having poked
Corfu with my umbrella

till it is green and cicerone,
white above pools of marine
green, olive above white rocks.

I tell you how it is,
seeing that sitting out
siesta here in the

shade on a balcony,
I should know. 'Shade in which I
trusted, I can't mend your spokes.'

Brian Louis Pearce, poet and novelist, was born in West London in 1933, the son of a carpenter. Married with one daughter, who lives in Corfu, he has been a college librarian, a local historian, lecturer, and much else besides. His earlier poems are collected in Selected Poems 1951-1973 (Outposts, 1977) and his mid-career work is found in volumes such as Gwen John Talking (2nd edn, 1996) and The Proper Fuss. His most recent collection is Growling (Stride, 2005). His novels include Victoria Hammersmith (Stride, 2nd edn, 2001).