I
am in a strange state of mind. I have returned to finalize the house
sale. Unless things get delayed, which they might, this is my last
stay in my home. I am already saying goodbye to places I have loved
for years, and not just places.
As
I walked through the woods with Helena, and again when I went alone
up to the woods above my house, I found myself thinking a lot about
Hannah who introduced me to the Czech Republic and all things Czech.
I owe this whole Czech adventure to Hannah. I realised as I walked
with Helena, that the route was one that Hannah and I had followed on my first walk in a Czech
forest several years before I bought my house. The same was true of the woods above my home, where Hannah
gave me my first lesson in mushroom collecting. Over the brow of the
hill the woods drop down to the road to Lake Olsina, where Hannah had
her cottage.
Hannah's
main home was in Cesky Krumlov. She moved three times in that town,
so everywhere there are reminders of her. Although she died in April
2011, those memories never used to bother me. I always took comfort
from them. But now I am glad the willows planted on the island she
fought for have grown so large that they curtain the view of her last
home, where my memories are most painful.
Selling
my Czech home seems like letting her down. When she was dying she
worried that the little colony of Brits that had grown up about her
would break up. I told her: no offence but I didn't just buy the
house because of her and wasn't planning to sell up after her death.
She was relieved by this. It mattered a great deal to her that I
bought the house as a place to write poetry. She loved my poetry and
wanted to encourage it. The visit I made with her to Prague in 1990
was the inspiration behind my poem for voices Fool's Paradise.
I
was chatting to her son the other day, who told that his mother would
have been delighted that my poetry had suddenly blossomed and that at
last I have a book of poetry accepted for publication next year with
Indigo Dreams (more of that anon). I know too that Hannah would have
understood the fact that I now need to be in UK to pursue my poetry
dream. And yet...
