Category Archives: Love

Evensong

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At night when lights within the house turned high
Shine out in answer to the starlit sky,
I go outside to close the shutters tight
Against the rigours of the winter’s night.
I lift each hook and push the shutter to,
Catching a gentle vision as I do,
Behind the panes, of faces that I love,
My whole world’s gift and sacred treasure trove,
Each unaware within his frame of light
Of causing me, the watcher, such delight.
Then am I moved profoundly as I see
How blessed fortune has so favoured me.

(finished in Erasmus Hospital, Brussels 8.2.89)

Parents, grandparents …

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They have now gone from us,
Those all-protecting ones,
The angels by the bed,
The guardians at the gate.
This is Life’s promotion!
Step by reluctant step
We move forward daily
To take their place.

At the close of a summer’s day,
Far, far down the beach
At the ebb-tide’s turning,
To sand, sea and wind
We committed them,
Ashes to ashes,
Human dust to dust,
Memories to sand.

Wedding Day

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Now flow the golden waters of the sun
Back to their northern limits.
This is the night,
The terminus of seasons,
In which that ancient tide,
The life stream of the world,
Turns in its yearly path
And melts the scales of ice
And primitive defences
Of the armadillo winter.
In this long night,
The darkest of the year,
You come to be my sun,
My moon,
My very source of fire.
Our meeting was, with paths of moons
And orbits of the stars,
Before all time determined.

There is a springtime in all seasons
Which is the progeny of love.
This is the season which you bring to me,
Filling my nights with dew
And days with flowers.

 

For Judy, 23 December 1967