( for Virginia Woolf)

Light & dark collide
her life is a palimpsest
of butterfly memories
of twisted ills & happiness
viewed through a pin hole
captured in black & white
The Lighthouse still stands
in St Ives where it always was
where she used to go as a child
she writes “ Mrs Dalloway”
& eats conference pears
Occasionally she hears the birds
singing in Greek as they fly by
Death, which will claim her is always waiting.