Poor hedgehog in the road squashed by a car,
What good to you was your hibernation?
Had you woken up but one day later
You might have lived to see the summer through.
But alas you were not destined to be
Another Mrs Tiggywinkle,
Hanging out washing till a ripe old age.
In the horse-drawn days of Beatrix,
Hedgehogs had greater life expectancy!
27th April 1971
A blackbird sat on the school fence
Watching the boys doing long jump.
“This is the way you do it,” he said,
And swooping down from his perch
Flew the whole length of the sand pit.
A red cardinal
Flew into the house today
And lost himself in
The orange of the sofa.
Only the black line
Of his beak and the brilliant
Eyes gave him away.
Seychelles, 31 October 1968
I have a homing instinct for the stars 
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