In the Sauna

            I had done my forty minutes in the gym and decided to take a few more in the sauna. There was only one other person there, a woman. She was, I guess, forty years old or so.  Life is enriched by chance conversations. I made some suitable remark and she answered in a distinct accent.

            'Are you Polish?' I enquired.

            She made a face.

            'No, Russian!'

            In the dim light her blonde hair had darkened. So had her green eyes which, in the light of a single electric bulb, seemed to glitter blackly. In her slim face I saw strength and lively expression. She spoke with an assertive, no-nonsense vitality.

            'I like the accent' I said 'but I know very little about Russia'.

            'What would you like to know?' she asked.

            This was difficult; I really had no interest in Russia. Then I remembered something.

            'I like Russian literature' I said.

            'What have you read?'

            'War and Peace of course.'

            'What did you think of it?'

            'Great! Then there is Dostoevsky and Turgenev.'

            'Ah Turgenev!'

            'Actually I owe Turgenev some money. A few hundred pounds.'

            'You owe Ivan Turgenev money? How could that possibly be? He died in eighteen eighty-three.'

            'I read a passage in a book of Turgenev's called A Hunter's Album.'

            'Ah, you mean Zapiski Ohotnika. It's a lovely book, full of prose poetry.'

            'So it is. One bit that particularly appealed to me was about a grove of aspen trees.'

            'That is a famous passage. He is walking with his dog, otherwise alone in the vast estate he owns and he describes his impression of the trees.'

            'That's right. He describes the aspen as a quivering fan of round, slovenly leaves. He confesses to no great liking for it.'

            'Except in the reddening beams of the setting sun.'

            'And except on a clear, windy day when it is all rippling, rustling, and whispering to the blue sky.'

            'What then?'

            'I wove Turgenev's prose into verse which I submitted to a poetry competition.'

            'You are a poet?'

            'I thought so at the time. That poem won the first prize: £500! Then I got to feeling I was a mere plagiarist.'

            'Can you recite your poem?'

            I had to think it through. After a long pause in the conversation  I thought I could.

            'I'd love to hear it' she said.

            I cleared my throat and went right through without a single hesitation.

'I cannot like the aspen grove,
the grey-green leaves, the trunks of mauve,
the peacock branches held a span
too high, to quiver like a fan,
untidy leaves, absurdly round,
their long thin stalks far off the ground
and summer evenings are too rare
when, in the sun's last crimson glare,
the aspens, rising over brush,
in isolation seem to blush
from tops to roots, to tremble, gleam,
and in the ebb of sunlight seem
to glow with gold or purple light
as lamp-lit amber glows at night.
Or on a clear and windy day
its leaves, intent to blow away,
like noisy, flapping streamers try
to rush into the distant sky
like paper bunting tearing free;
I cannot like the aspen tree.'

            There was silence and then she asked:

            'Do you always write about nature?'

            'No. My favourite subject is love but I did once write about a bear I saw in the mountains of Romania. That was the  closest I ever got to Russia; back when the Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.'

            'You have never been to Russia?'

            'No.'

            'Tell me about the bear.'

            I had to think that through too.

'Those misbegotten dogs! O how they howl,
ears up and tense,
at darker darkness on the midnight's edge,
at blacker shadows, at a deeper growl,
beside the forest fence
where Bruin, ragged as a winter hedge,
came through the palings with a casual crash
and now is ripping up the litter bins
for peelings, mouldered cheese and kitchen trash;
for bones, rich-smelling rinds and open tins.
Beyond the barking dogs I know he's there.
They turn to me encouraged, push too close,
fly back, droop-tailed, so leaving me to dare
the infamous, the mighty and morose,
ill-natured, riled and hungry forest bear
but he has slipped away, the burly lout,
the bins all wrecked and all the waste thrown out.'

          'We have many bears in Russia. Also wolves, wolverines and the Siberian Tiger.' She looked wistful. She made me feel ashamed of the entirely safe nature of Britain's fauna.          

          'England has nothing in the way of dangerous wild animals but we have some wonderful myths and legends about the woods and forests. There's the Green Man for instance or Wodwo as we call him in Norfolk.'

            'Tell me about him.'

            'It's another poem I'm afraid.'

            'Go on then.'

'Such things are shy and hard to see but sometimes,
like a nymph caught washing her hair,
he forgets to look over his shoulder
and fails to see you, frozen, standing there.
In shaded summer beneath weighty boughs,
he sees you standing and returns your stare,
across his carpet of dog's mercury,
or else star-scattered wood anemones
or yellow celandines or bright bluebells,
or ramsons with their untamed garlic smells.
The vision fades into the summer green,
the autumn russet, winter's bony trees...
You strain your eyes to fix what you have seen
for eyes can trick with anything they please.
There's only shadows and a twisted bough.
It's nothing. Yet the wood feels empty now.'

          'What do you write of love?' she asked.

          'I no longer write of love.'

            'Why not?'

            'Listen,' I said.

Yes, I remember bluebells; in the month of May.
Leaves overhead, unbudding, were still thin.
The lane was mired in puddles on soft clay,
reflecting sky and swallows, cumulous,
clouds white as choir boys and us.
A timid sun lit up the haze of blue
beneath the sycamores. A covert wood,
hemmed in by ditches long, so long, ago,
was all the cover we were bedded in.
It was the season that brooks no delay:
when every flower is pressing into bud
and life is urgent to mix blood with blood.
So like a doting dog came love, full tilt,
and sent us sprawling on this bluebell quilt.

I dared to visit Bluebell wood

though you, my love, were  missing.

Wind cooled my lips; it tasted good,

as if your lips were kissing.

The scent of bluebells was your breath;

yet this was only seeming;

there's nothing so complete as death

and all the rest is dreaming.

Once, once upon a time it seemed

that you were here beside me

but can it be I only  dreamed?

For now, O woe betide me,

I cannot think that it was true

so far beyond all dreams are you.

            She shivered, looked at her watch and rose from the wooden bench she sat on.  'I'm late for an appointment. Goodbye, poet.' she said, opened the door and left with a blast of cold air. I have looked out for her often I but have never seen her since.