I look into your well of loneliness
to see you thrashing out to stay
alive. Your body, fine-boned, angular,
flat-chested, in tailored suit and tie
contemptuous of feminine mystique,
looks otherwordly through refraction
in the cold congealing water.
Above it your strong head
tosses defiance at a callous world
that looks down on your suffering
with arms extended in abhorrence
not in help. Where are your
friends, I ask, with ropes
to toss to you or other
means of rescue that I lack?
How can you be alone, full
of compassion, sense and mellow
words to hold true friends,
rich and sophisticated to attract
acquaintances?... I see. The world
felt nervous with a woman born
into a study, not a kitchen
or a nursery; making no marriage
vows, yet not a spinster; living
with one who couldn’t be
a wife. Where is she now? –
in fact, forgotten more than you;
in fiction, thrust into the sun
to find a man and earn stiff
nods from hard humanity.
Some of your friends and fellow-
sufferers climbed after her while
others sank below the surface,
drowned in despair or drink. Maybe
some knew a secret happiness.
Now only you survive
in memory, explorer-missionary,
sinner-saint, too proud to die.
Poem
To Radclyffe Hall
David Tribe