Autobiography At An Air-Station
Delay, well, travellers must expect Delay. For how long? No one seems to know. With all the luggage weighed, the tickets checked, It can’t be long… We amble too and fro, Sit in steel
Is It For Now Or For Always
Is it for now or for always, The world hangs on a stalk? Is it a trick or a trysting-place, The woods we have found to walk? Is it a mirage or miracle, Your
Story
Tired of a landscape known too well when young: The deliberate shallow hills, the boring birds Flying past rocks; tired of remembering The village children and their naughty words, He abandoned his small holding
Dockery And Son
‘Dockery was junior to you, Wasn’t he?’ said the Dean. ‘His son’s here now.’ Death-suited, visitant, I nod. ‘And do You keep in touch with-‘ Or remember how Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight We
Myxomatosis
Caught in the center of a soundless field While hot inexplicable hours go by What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed? You seem to ask. I make a sharp reply, Then clean
The Building
Higher than the handsomest hotel The lucent comb shows up for miles, but see, All round it close-ribbed streets rise and fall Like a great sigh out of the last century. The porters are
The School In August
The cloakroom pegs are empty now, And locked the classroom door, The hollow desks are lined with dust, And slow across the floor A sunbeam creeps between the chairs Till the sun shines no
Church Going
Once I am sure there’s nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some
Counting
Thinking in terms of one Is easily done- One room, one bed, one chair, One person there, Makes perfect sense; one set Of wishes can be met, One coffin filled. But counting up to
Deceptions
“Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regain Consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to Discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable,
Take One Home For The Kiddies
On shallow straw, in shadeless glass, Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep: No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass – Mam, get us one of them to keep. Living toys are something novel,
Toads
Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off? Six days of the week it soils With its sickening
Days
What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days? Ah, solving that question
Long Sight In Age
They say eyes clear with age, As dew clarifies air To sharpen evenings, As if time put an edge Round the last shape of things To show them there; The many-levelled trees, The long
Love Songs In Age
She kept her songs, they kept so little space, The covers pleased her: One bleached from lying in a sunny place, One marked in circles by a vase of water, One mended, when a