‘Spring and summer bees make honey
Then when winter comes
Where does the bee belong?
The bee whose honey has been taken?’
So said Yvette Pienne as I remember
Costumed black on black – still tall and slender –
Her ebony and silver cane
Permitting she remain
‘Upright and mobile’ – as she would assert
To those who enquired of her health
‘The Romantic Age’ – her 1920s debut
‘The New Morality’ – then minor roles
Until French Comedy in which she starred –
‘The Pearls of the Crown’ allowed her to play
Three royal roles – Elizabeth and Mary and Victoria
In English French and Italian –
Her skittishly witty ‘scandalised’ style
Long retired and long forgotten –
To London all ‘eccentrics’ seem the same? –
Her friends took her to celebrate and see
Herself ‘revived’ two nights at the NFT –
Celluloid comedies of Sacha Guitry
‘Now perhaps a girl might call for tea?
And help me type my poems?’
‘Ah me –
Winter again and I must keep indoors
Disposing of those clinging things that clutter
Distributing some ‘treasures’ as may be…
It is well old people die or nothing new
Might spring into this world of suffering’
.
Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer
.