Emerald

`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.