Uncle Alfred returned from India, With a carved cigarette box, Then slumped in his socks On our worn leather sofa, Within the bay window,...

The house was real is now a dream, Where we lived a while in summer light, And occasional Midi rain. At breakfast, When we rose, the...

At a quiet end of day and year, Through a sky of porcelain blue, A plane buzzed like an insect, Travelled south, drilling the distance....

When you are young there is a place For regret. The past is close And sometimes can be remedied. With age we grow bitter, recall What we...

After Grandfather went funny He took me for a morning walk, Looking neither left nor right, Straight across the Great North Road....

Four of them walked across grass Beneath and between trees And they signed to us: Do not Walk on the obvious graves, As we strolled past...

Out of the mind's mud runs A narrow road through grassland. Behind colourless trees, Riflemen point nervous guns. At the vanishing point...

The mind is a vestry door with a bishop's name. Knock, you will get no answer but enter and sing a hymn. It may help you sleep lest you...

Here in this quiet house all sleep, And I give time to memory, Hang a sepia photo on a wall, Pull sketches on brown paper From a drawer....

An oily smear on a still pool. A friend obliquely watching Drew close and said: How beautiful! Perceive the rainbow pattern On the...

Speracedes Easter '91 Seeking a quiet grave In the evening light We took the lower road Where the old lavoirs stand And the stream still...

Ice-pick gone, feet first, face down, Malory slid, clawed at the scree, Skewed to a halt, humped miles up, Like a cuttle bone on a beach,...

Two figures stood waving goodbye, The man, my father, one foot in the gutter, Watery blue eyes more apt to fix on nothing But fixing now...

The large and paunchy man, with straddled legs and slippered feet, paddling across a hotel floor to sit because he cannot stand, evokes...

The clock of his life had a slow tick And a large surprised white face, Which was seldom seen, Since it went better Face downward. It...

A late letter for Margaret So you have slipped away, Margaret, bequeathing us warm memories which will last our days (you had a rough...

Father found a letter to my mother from a soldier who had been at home when Father was away. Mother quite denied that more than...

for Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth The echoes of a gift thought lost haunt the approach of age as a forgotten page...

If you regret you did not open the many doors you knocked on, reproach yourself for that regret, some doors are mere illusion. Life's...

Looking at you now, light falling, wondering what you are thinking, bent forward in profile, old, yes, but somehow beautiful, although...