Touching Hannah Part One

"To touch with the thought is almost the same as to touch with the hand." (III.1.ii)Victor Hugo- The Toilers of the Sea


The point of departure.

Le point de départ.



Who was it unpinned your hair,
wrapped the rippling waves to drape
around the island of your body?
Does he share the dreams that hover
out on sea swept horizons of your mind,
does he hold them in his hands
just out of time and out of shot?
I wonder if they penetrated
beyond the dark caves of your youth;
If this moment is captured in peasant
innocence, natural as a basketful
of Guernsey lilies riffled
by the breeze from France,
or posed to show the virgin blush
of sacrificial bridal calm.



No Victorine she to return unblinking
in unashamed beauty the critic’s gaze
in decadent salons of the infamous,
but ingénue, a Cosette, grown to recognise
the power of love that smoulders hot
when she meets a young man’s eyes;
she caresses the cornucopia
of Romantic asides
pauses in wistful interlude
between girlish toil and woman’s duty.