Christine De Luca

 

Stills

Frogner Park, Oslo

 

Fifty year ago an mair,
I daandered trowe dis park,
joy an surprise in equal mizzer.

Still
bairns clim on da carvings,
pose wi da bronzes,
touch statues in filsket places
burnish dem

an still
fock hadd der bairns
i da pose o da figures;
an lasses still fling der hair
inta a frenzy sae der freends
can snap dem
wi Da Wild-Haired Wumman;
bairns still pout, tirn-faced, afore
Da Ill-tempered Boy.

An still
naeboady lingers wi da aald couple,
der granite waarmly ponderous,
der luik kinda far awa.

An still
der nane takkin selfies
bi da daeth frieze.

Eftirwirds, at da café,
aaboady seems in tableau:
laads lockit in mock combat
a couple canoodlin
a bairn balancin on stilts.

 

 

Filsket: naughty | bairns: children | tirn-faced: cross | der nane takkin: no one is taking


Christine De Luca lives in Edinburgh. She writes in English and Shetlandic, her mother tongue. She was appointed Edinburgh’s Makar for 2014-2017. Besides several children’s stories and one novel, she has had seven poetry collections and four bi-lingual volumes published (French, Italian, Icelandic and Norwegian). She’s participated in many festivals here and abroad. Her poems have been selected four times for the Best Scottish Poems of the Year (2006, 2010, 2013 and 2015) for The Scottish Poetry Library online anthologies.


Continue to Agnes Hanying Ong’s ‘Ichthys!’ & ‘Fobby’ >>

<< Go back to Kimi Traube’s ‘Let’s not pretend this hasn’t happened to you’ & ‘Let’s hope she burned it’

Return to Issue 6