Madonna del Parto
A fresco by Piero della Francesca, c.1460
Piero painted her in a week, after his mother died,
her azure gown split open like a ripe plum,
her posh girl fingers resting on the mystery,
all swollen belly and haloed radiance.
She stands almost on air, cupped in a tent
lined with the winter coats of squirrels.
Red and green angels with thin boned wings hold back
the damask curtain, present her to villagers and visitors.
It’s like she’s just stepped inside on a damp day.
Her unstroked eggshell face in its tense clarity
promises the midwife’s pull, a full washing line,
all the mess and separateness of children.
So many reached up to her, but mostly
before they took her from the mildewed chapel
to this scrubbed museum solitude that somehow
smells of lime blossom, tastes of pomegranate
of pain of dignity of miraculous symmetry.
*
She drifts in me as I walk down the hill
to the claggy fields, where a woman carries zucchini
and tells me it is not a good day for photos
as rain runs off the roofs and milk flows.
Published by Valley Press, Graft and Wrecking Ball, Adam Strickson has been Poet in Residence for Ilkley Literature Festival. He is writer-in-residence for Balbir Singh Dance Company, makes lanterns and puppets and enjoys working with refugees.
A Visitation
No one knows what really occurred when the girl in the blue uniform fell unconscious in the staff cloakrooms. Some said that she’d passed out from the heat of the kitchens in the grand hotel where we worked; others that she’d been drunk on the vintage wine reserved for the resident VIPs – the movie stars and high-level diplomats, the minor royalty of distant countries. The feast that night was so lavish that even the kitchen staff were stuffed and rosy-cheeked. Marie was just a scullery maid but her charming face and sweetness of manner had attracted attention, and certain celebrities had demanded that only she should serve them.
That is the simplest and most believable theory, anyway. Yet Marie herself swore she had not touched a drop. How to explain it? Above the clattering of plates, she told us she’d felt sleepy all of a sudden and had an extraordinary dream in which she met a dazzling man she’d never seen before and could not name, but whom she recognised and trusted immediately. He had promised her that one day the world would be different and that she, Marie, would be a woman of consequence, idolised by millions.
At this, the chef threw a jug of cold water over her, calling her a fantasist and a drunken hussy who was getting above herself and needed to sober up. The kitchen porters, three bum-fluffed boys, began to laugh and mock her. Would a fairy wave her wand and produce a golden coach, they asked? No, Marie said, her face blanched with incipient tears – she was sure it must be true: the man had taken her hands and gazed at her with great solemnity. She was surrounded by light. It had felt as if her entire body was being caressed by feathers; as if she were floating, wrapped in a cocoon of lucent softness and peace. (Here the porters sniggered, but Marie looked so pained they fell silent again.) Then, she continued, she had fainted and when she awoke we were all standing above her. That was all she knew.
Who could believe her – a tale so fanciful? Even so, we returned to work in a subdued state of wonder and perplexity. Yet none of us was entirely surprised, many weeks later, to learn that, in fact, Marie was pregnant. She had kept her condition hidden, so it was almost Christmas when management discovered the truth. She was sacked instantly, of course, for misconduct, and banished without goodbyes. We never found out who the father was. We don’t even know if she had anywhere to go. And who knows, now, what will happen to her?
Rebecca Johnson Bista lives in Penzance and is one of two representatives for Cornwall on the Southbank New Poets Collective ‘Poet in Every Port’ project for 2025-2027. Her work has recently been published in Inkfish, Aspier, and South magazine.
Annunciation twenty-first century style
If Mary hadn’t been so meek and mild
and confounded by her impossible situation,
maybe she could have shouted at Gabriel,
bring me your three wise men and shepherds
and I’ll raise you better boys and men.
But she submitted to her destiny, gave birth
to Christmas, tied us all to the umbilical cord,
and tried to hold down three jobs whilst
looking fabulous and being good in the sack.
Mother Mary comes to you, let it be, let it be.
But I won’t let it be, don’t want this natal myth
to define another festive household – women
cooking, washing up, seeing that everyone’s ok,
when they want to be a bit more Magdalene –
out on the lash, dancing, laughing like drains.
Or finding a quiet corner to finish a few more
rows of knitting, read another chapter, stare
out of the window while the glass mists up.
This stillness too might be our holy night,
our answer to the angel if he dares to try it on.
Pat Edwards is a writer, reviewer, and workshop leader from mid Wales. She hosts Verbatim open mic nights and curates Welshpool Poetry Festival. Pat has work published in magazines and anthologies, and in her three pamphlets.