Il Lago – by Veronica Beedham

This poem by Society member Veronica Beedham was commended in the 2019 members’ competition, and published in the Society’s Folio #73. Veronica’s Overton Prize winning pamphlet A Sense of Place is available from Loughborough University

Il Lago

‘Che paesaggi che ci sono qui!’ Renzo Bertasi

Mist all week over the lake
spun from nothing               white as hoar-frost

so we took the boat eager for passage
from the ordinary world

into this other                     cold
untouchable                   the mountains hidden

and if there were an Ice Queen
she was far off sullen                   deep in snow

for the mist was like snow         like snow’s
soft oppression against a window                        the moon

rising above                                which was the sun
poised on a ribbon of silver

but we were just journeying         all we ever knew lost

keel cutting through the black mirror                         sibilance
of water                     waiting for the jetty

small judder of a boat making harbour