The Arch - Jane Clarke
Not Tudor or corbel,
lancet or Gothic,
not burdened by a bridge
or chastened by a church,
but hewn from rough limestone blocks,
wedged flank to flank by peasant masons,
it stands at the edge of the avenue
in chestnut-tree shade.
It has sent off scoundrels,
barred bailiffs from entry,
welcomed carriages home.
It never sleeps on duty,
never refuses swallows a nest,
never tells stories better unsaid.
Years it watched the courtyard walls
crumble and fall, till it was left alone.
When will it stop trying to hold
what can no longer be held?
The Arch is by Jane Clarke, published in A Change in the Air (Bloodaxe Books, 2023), reprinted with permission.
I first read this poem a year or so ago, on my way to see Jane Clarke and the other shortlisted poets at the TS Eliot prize readings. Much like its titular arch – refusing to “crumble” – something about the poem has stayed with me. As I revisit it again now, I’m transported to that chestnut-lined avenue, looking up at the weathered stonework of the ruins. Somewhere, too, is the ghost of the old building; a courtyard alive with comings-and-goings, stories stretching back into the past.
I’m reminded of a trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland a few years ago, an abiding memory of which was exploring the various castle and church ruins dotted along the coastline. Across the road from our Air BnB were the ruins of an old abbey, whose buildings dated back to the 12th century. I can still picture our two-year-old daughter wandering around its maze of walls and arches, tiny under a roof of sky.
In Clarke’s poem, the magnificence of the arch lies in its functionality: it had a job to do. I like the way the architecture takes on a character in the poem: stoical, stubborn even. The arch is the gatekeeper, protector. It’s also the load-bearer, designed and built with strength in mind. As we move down the poem, all this weight and history sits quite literally on top of that final couplet – the poem’s keystone, if you like. And in one deft sentence, all that weight falls away as we realise, in fact, there is nothing left to hold at all – or rather, what is being held is not what’s there but what’s not.
It took my breath away, that ending. As if a door is suddenly opened onto this edifice of unacknowledged grief. It brings to mind the sorts of losses that accumulate gradually over time; the slow erosion of relationships, roles, parts of the self. How the wounds of these losses can go untended. The sudden, lurching awareness of absence.
When will it stop trying to hold what can no longer be held? Phrased as a question, that final couplet has this effect of propelling us forwards as well as back in time. It seems to me there’s a question of why (or, why not) here, as well as when. I picture that lone arch – frequented now only by walkers or curious children – refusing to abandon its duty. What might it mean to let go? Perhaps, acknowledging what has been lost would mean confronting its own redundancy or finiteness. Or perhaps the arch is there to preserve the memory of the building of which it was once a part: if it goes, what (or who) else is there to remember?
The poem’s question reminds me of the invitation of therapy: to take up a different position in relation to oneself, to reflect on one’s story – how it has changed, how it might yet change again. Oftentimes, we’re working as therapists with different parts of the self, each with their own – potentially conflicting – wants, needs and preoccupations. Our psychological “doorways” are also a key focus: when do we let people in and when do we keep them out? Getting to know ourselves (whether in therapy or personal reflection) typically means exploring ways in which our different parts have been built, sculpted and weathered by our experiences in life.
As therapists, we’re also interested in the interplay between past and present. How have different parts of the self evolved, and what legacies shape them in the present? In Clarke’s poem, it’s as if the arch has become frozen in time, unable to let go of a role it used to perform, burdened with memories and feelings from the past. It reminds me of how parts of us can get stuck in the past, holding tight to habits and patterns that were once essential but which may be complicated, painful or frightening to leave behind.
Sometimes, facing the stuck parts of ourselves – particularly if they are causing us problems in the present – can be a deeply meaningful therapeutic process, opening the door to new ways of being and relating. It can also usher in feelings of grief as we face the vulnerabilities we’ve perhaps needed to protect ourselves from, the parts of ourselves that may have been neglected or lost along the way. The poem beautifully conjures the ambivalence that may come with change, the reckoning that may ensue. There is something particularly poignant, for me, about that arch “left alone”. It is possible to be lonely not just because you’re feeling disconnected from others but also because you’re feeling disconnected from yourself.
Sometimes, we can also hold onto the past because it serves us well, even if it comes at another’s expense. In Clarke’s poem, there is a suggestion of wealth and power protected within this former dwelling (built by “peasants”). Could it, perhaps, be holding onto something it was never entitled to in the first place? Could there be something disingenuous or even dangerous about the legacy of a structure that has long-since been toppled? I’m reminded of Derek Walcott’s poem, “Ruins of a Great House”: The rot remains with us, the men are gone.
On a different reading, there’s also something, I think, in the idea of the arch as monument. The poem features in Clarke’s collection (A Change in the Air) and comes at the end of a sequence concerned with heritage and the passage of time. Rooted in the landscape of rural Ireland, the poems tenderly evoke the customs and care of farming and family life. Several of the poems are concerned with Clarke’s experience of caring for her mother (I am becoming mother / to my mother). They are deeply moving poems – each, in a way, their own little arches: bearing witness to loss, holding up the past.
I’m writing now in early January, having just crossed that strange something-and-nothing threshold that is the turn of the year. As we collectively journey through this arch in time – its rituals and traditions, its bewildering inevitability – we’re often prompted to look both forwards and back. Who is here with us, this year? How do we find ourselves; how have we changed? What (and who) do we hold onto most tightly? What has been built, and what has been lost? Where do the monuments to the past belong, and where can we let them fall?
This can be a particularly painful time for those who are grieving, or lonely, bringing absences starkly into focus. The people who are no longer physically present but are nonetheless held close. The hopes and dreams that have “crumbled”. The parts of ourselves that may be in need of care and attention.
It can also be a time for reflection on the losses and perils experienced by those around us, and in the world at large. Though it will be inadequate, and will fail to do justice to events of the past year, it feels important to acknowledge the devastating loss experienced by so many as a result of armed conflict in countries around the world. I’m currently reading Forest of Noise by Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha. It is an extraordinary book, crafted amidst bloodshed and sorrow, bearing witness even as the bombs continue to fall.
Elsewhere in Jane Clarke’s collection is a sequence about the First World War (All the Way Home). Like Abu Toha’s work, at the heart of these poems are individual lives and loves. I’m thinking again about the poem as arch – “hewn” from the “rough blocks” of words, lone doorways resonant with stories, courageously affirming their humanity, our humanity, the magnitude and meaning of loss.
Part of what these poems do is invite the reader to share in the act of witness and grief. Here, for me, is one of poetry’s great gifts, and where I’d like to end this piece: the arch as a symbol of togetherness. Poems have the capacity to reach the hidden, split-off parts of ourselves and draw them into the light. They move boldly towards loss, working against indifference, against amnesia: they are an enlivening, conjoining force. They bring people together, in every sense of the phrase. And it is with our whole selves and with one another we are strongest, and can grieve most fully. It is together that we look, in hope, to the future.
Thank you to Jane Clarke and Bloodaxe Books for permission to share The Arch.
With warmest wishes to all for the New Year.