Liz Carew

Cirencester, U.K.

Liz Carew comes from Scotland but now lives in Gloucestershire. She has had poems published in various magazines including Poetry Scotland and Graffiti and in anthologies including A Poem for Europe, Hidden Voices. She has read her work several times as part of the Gloucestershire Writers Network at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Two Poems  The Snood  - In Leicester

Poem written on 20th May 2020

The Snood

I liked it for its stylised flower heads

in yellow, plum and dusky pink

and for its tracery of tiny leaves

along the edges:

somewhere between an Orla Kiely print,

a child’s sampler and a tapestry.

I swithered about buying it,

too early for the sale,

too late in the season

to get much wear this year.

I never thought that, in a glorious May

I’d be winding it around my neck,

shrouding my face,

burying my nose in it

like a posy,

a talisman against the plague.

Date Poem completed: 20th July 2020

In Leicester

Does it matter that I was there last summer;

that we walked through early morning streets

past the occasional half-timbered, medieval building

hidden in a plate-glass cityscape;

that we waited among dusty graves

for the heavy oak cathedral door to open?

That we discovered it was the anniversary

of the Battle of Bosworth Field,

and that the stark, contemporary lines

of King Richard’s tomb were softened

by bouquets of white roses;

that the guide pointed out the shiny black plinth

with its elegant lettering and

the polished Swarfedale stone of the sarcophagus

incised with a simple cross?

That in the Richard the Third Visitor Centre

there were prayers and time for quiet contemplation

in the place where his body was discovered:

the Blackfriars crypt glassed over; a sanctuary

of mellow wood and chrome?

Yes, it matters that I was there, in Leicester

because today I can think of those I met:

the cathedral guide, the friendly waitress

the helpful assistant in the museum shop

and those I didn’t meet, 

the workers in the sweatshops

the whole city  

once more

in lockdown.