Poem 6 The Summer of 1997

6/7/2021

We were in love and on our way to Parnham House to check it over as a venue for our forthcoming production of 'Don Pasquale' with Ruth's opera company, Dorset Chamber Opera.
We bought a punnet of strawberries and climbed a prominent hill, with a clump of pine trees on top, just outside Bridport. We called it Six Pine Hill. We didn't know it was called Colmers Hill. It didn't matter.

Strawberries on Six Pine Hill

They laugh and kiss
With strawberry sips,
The glistening pink
Of their strawberry lips,
And kiss and bite the flesh in half
With lips and teeth and lips and laugh.
And flesh is weak on Six Pine Hill
As Spring awakes, and passion's song
Lulls the afternoon along.
In love, they choose each fruit with care
As flesh and fruit and kiss they share.

First pubishes in Poetry Now South 1997 (Ed. Andrew Head)
© Robert Eshelby 1997

With love to Caroline and Luke who were married this weekend. x

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My Life

I was born in England soon after the war. I moved , with my family to Australia in 1966, where I was a soldier (briefly), a public servant, an opera singer, and an English teacher.
I moved back to the UK after twelve years and, after singing with D'Oyly Carte Opera for two years, qualified as a social worker specialising in dementia care.
I've run St Cecilia Dementia Care for thirty-two years now. I've sung lots of opera as an amateur in Dorset and took up the cornet and trumpet, for good measure, fifteen years ago.
I am married to Ruth and have two children, two step-sons and four grand-children. Ruth and I moved to The Vendee in France last year (2020).
I am an avid reader and
I have written poetry throughout my life.

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