Four Pieces After Hadewijch

Peter Riley

FOUR PIECES AFTER HADEWIJCH
IN THE PENGUIN BOOK OF WOMEN POETS

1

Everything
pushes in on me:
I'm too wide!
I'm too wide!
I'm too wide!

I grasped
at the unformed
in eternity

and caught it,
and it cast me
beyond width.

Now, everywhere else,
the self is too thin –
if you'd been there too
you'd know what I'm talking about.

2

Having sung love
doesn't stop it hurting.
Love's duress is tight and strong,
I am an object inside it,
        a pain in the body of love –
so tightly bound in,
how can you talk about restraint?

3

So as love allows it
I pity my heartpangs
and grow deaf to her demand
while my claims are nothing to her force.
So as the dying swan
first sings and then bows,
what love asks of me now
let me in such custom end.

4

Had I known how far I could fall
I would have concentrated on rising
and if I had donated myself
entirely to love I would have had
proper return from my expense,
the loan back for the cost –
and agreement between living and love.
        Then I'd inhabit upperness
        and all the things my lower
        acts reveal the lack of.
        It is the question that rises.

also by Peter Riley: Lancashire Graveyards