Some have said that the bravest thing we do
Is to get up each morning and face the dawn
It may be so. The light is grey and cold
There seem to be no reasons to go on

And yet - the morning sun begins to kiss
The sensitive, delicate springtime leaves
Turning their own hopes to the morning sun
Stretching their chloroplasts awake to life

So even as sunlight embraces the tree
So maybe there will be kisses - we’ll see!

Sweet music on the Mustang’s radio
We’re sitting in her parents’ driveway

And sort of talking about the movie
And sort of talking about poetry and life

Frost is settling on the hood of the car
But all is warm in our bubble of love

Until

Our kiss is interrupted by the flickering
Of the parental, watchful front porch light

We sigh. We kiss. The censorial eye -
It orders me away  - “That’s all! Bye-bye!”

                      (Oh, flick that porch light anyway!)

On this dark day, this evil day, this day
In a railway carriage on a branch line
Three hundred years of civilization
And millions of lives, three generations
Were signed away with a few penned words
In a railway carriage on a branch line
On this dark day, this evil day, this day




(2 March 1917 O.S.)

The Little Boy

Out of a grave dark street
On a stiff and sterile morn
Walked a stringless marionette
With a ghastly ashen form.

I clasped my greatcoat close
For a ripping wind thrashed by
And pencil-thin limbs shuffled
Past a man who couldn’t cry.

Against the wrath of winter
Crying havoc round the lake
He wore defiant rags like banners
Wildly flapping in his wake.

‘l hope he soon finds shelter’-
Thought I wrapped up so warm
‘gainst the whirling swirling leaves
And a frenzied snowflake swarm.

His face then turned towards me
With lifeless stone grey eyes,
That seemed to have full  knowledge
Of  my  self-supporting lies.

So I pursued him boldly
As he scurried on his way
And threw my coat around him-
A shield  to storm’s affray.

Alas! I stumbled forward
And fell into the snow
For the stunted waif I followed
Had gone where I could never go.