Ruth Padel

The highlight of the year, for a small singing group I belong to, is an evening’s work with a conductor who specialises in 16th-century music. We practise hard in advance. Our repertoire is English and Italian madrigals, and this year we had two by Monteverdi but were divided over which English one to choose. We sight-read a massive six-voice piece by Thomas Weelkes, ‘Thule, the...

for Ian Jack

Lying in bed in the dark without heating. December 3rd and feeling warm, almost too warm, I hear the window give that rattle-burp it only ever does when the wind is fierce outside.

Black raindrops flame on the glass. Light from across the back gardens, one lone yellow oblong, someone up early on a winter morning. And I think of my parents putting radiators in their home,

dark...

You’ve given away your temple, Lord, your altar-stone, dun flame of burning myrrh, oil poured in long libation, soaking into turf; smoke rising to your sky from incense-sacrifices kindled by our grandfathers. You’ve given away our wall-of-the-world liana-twined batik – the holy mountain, dipterocarp, deciduous, evergreen, where panther pugs are secrets...

How can I paint Winter Landscape with Temples and Travellers, or Five-Colour Parakeet

on Blossoming Apricot Tree? The oracle boxes are empty

and the Minister with a Brief for Charming Explanation has signed a licence to the army for the forest to be cut,

ordered satin linings to his red kimono and is drinking with the General

in what he says is the best restaurant in town, attended by two...

Travelling ends. Fur’s losing condition. Brittle, each ginger hair-tip will snap. Rubbed patches appear on the rump as they squeeze into underground tunnels, flatten themselves under fences in wet sieve of rain, scuff through concrete hole four inches square. Greeting the year with a clear soul, she looks for a family earth. Her mother, her grandmothers dug in cement...