An elegy to a lost mother, Emerald is the moving new collection from prize-winning poet Ruth Padel
`Here in deep earth, the black
blossom of mourning still sifting within me
I remembered that emerald was my birthstone ...'
Prize-winning poet Ruth Padel's heartfelt new collection is a grief observed: an elegy for her mother on her death at the age of ninety-seven.
Exploring the riches of emerald lore, Padel follows the glint of green - `green for awakening / for bringing life back from the dead' - from memories of her mother, a naturalist, to the black honeycomb of a Colombian emerald mine and sunset-pink of the Emerald City, Jaipur. Beneath everything shines the jewel itself, `the only stone in which the flaws are prized'.
Beautifully carved and cadenced, Emerald is a moving chronicle of value and loss, and a celebration of all that is precious in the life that remains.