"THOUGH logic-choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,'
Or so did Tom O'Roughley say
That saw the surges running by.
"And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.
"If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What's dying but a second wind?
How but in zig-zag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?'
Or something of that sort he said,
"And if my dearest friend were dead
I'd dance a measure on his grave.'

Some days we are but noise
beneath a silent sky,
Waiting and wanting to be heard,
The creek of an old machine still proving it's worth,
The light of a dying star illuminating the faces of people we love,
Framed, perpetually, by the world.



(Inspired by the Photography of Clive  Roughley)