Shazea Quraishi

‘What if this road . . .’ – Travels over Land

Sheenagh Pugh asks us, ‘Who wants to know where a road will

go?’ In these poems, Helen Burke is striding excitedly out of town. Sasha Dugdale longs to burst from the warm house and walk out into Christmas night. Gillian Allnut and Hollie McNish bike to freedom. Here are journeys by train and carriage, an escape across the sands and plenty of instructions for the intrepid. It’s time to shoulder your bag – though be sure to travel light – and begin the journey.

Not all these roads lead somewhere. Not all these roads are real roads. The important thing – always – is to keep on moving.

What if this road

What if this road, that has held no surprises

these many years, decided not to go

home after all; what if it could turn

left or right with no more ado

than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin

were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,

that is shaken and rolled out, and takes

a new shape from the contours beneath?

And if it chose to lay itself down

in a new way; around a blind corner,

across hills you must climb without knowing

what’s on the other side; who would not hanker

to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know

a story’s end, or where a road will go?

Sheenagh Pugh

On the Road Through Chang-te

On the last year’s trip I enjoyed this place.

I am glad to come back here today.

The fish market is deep in blue shadows.

I can see the smoke for tea rising

From the thatched inn.

The sands of the river beaches

Merge with the white moon.

Along the shore the willows

Wait for their Spring green.

Lines of a poem run through my mind.

I order the carriage to stop for a while.

Sun Yün-feng

Translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung

Divorce

A voice from the dark is calling me.

In the close house I nurse a fire.

Out in the dark cold winds rush free

To the rock heights of my desire.

I smother in the house in the valley below,

Let me out to the night, let me go, let me go.

Spirits that ride the sweeping blast,

Frozen in rigid tenderness,

Wait! for I leave the fire at last

My little-love’s warm loneliness.

I smother in the house in the valley below,

Let me out to the night, let me go, let me go.

High on the hills are beating drums.

Clear from a line of marching men

To the rock’s edge the hero comes.

He calls me and he calls again.

On the hill there is fighting, victory, or quick death,

In the house is the fire, which I fan with sick breath.

I smother in the house in the valley below,

Let me out to the dark, let me go, let me go!

Anna Wickham

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The dusk settles at about two