‘Be Curious’

In Celia’s England are no signposts, so strangers
Loose their road and have it to goe back againe.
She complains that even locals do not know the way.
And lanes are jagged with stones and gouged by rain,
roads unrepaired since Roman times are wrecked.
Her horse’s hooves delve deep in mud, cause slips and stumbles.
She writes of tracks so narrow that two horses cannot pass
where carriages are Little wheele-barrows pulled by ponies.

I think of Celia’s England, still scruffy with heath
and wood and wetland. I think of her leaning down
to ask the way then guessing her direction.
Celia lifting her horse’s feet, and pricing farriers.
I think of her diary’s fluent hand.
Celia exhorting us to visit our native land.

.

In 1697, Celia Fiennes mounted her horse and set off on a journey of some 3000 miles, which over two summers would take her to every county in England, and just over the borders of Scotland and Wales. She wrote a detailed account of her journeys, and in her introduction she nods briefly to convention by telling us she does not expect readers other than ‘my near relations’. However, she then proceeds briskly to pen a call to ‘all persons, both Ladies, much more Gentlemen’ to explore their own country.

This poem is from a collection I’ve written about three remarkable women writer-travellers, which all being well will be published in 2028.

First published in Acumen 113, 2025