By Stour’s waters, on a day
Of summer mists and sunlight pale,
I saw the tower of Dedham Church
And heard its bell across the Vale.
Yet time stood still for angels passed
In golden cohorts overhead,
And, like the play of light on hills,
The glory of their presence spread.
My blest companions drank with me
The silence of that mystic hour,
And, by their passing, stirred for me
The healing waters of the Stour.
April 1990
I came at last to Lindisfarne
And walked the shore that Aidan trod,
And felt in rain and salty wind
The presence of his Celtic god.
What came we out to seek, to find?
What vestiges of youthful faith
To resurrect from grass and sand,
Upon the bleak Northumbrian heath?
Dear, gentle saint, whose Irish name
Means ‘Little Fire’, ignite in me,
Across the intervening years,
The furnace of your charity.
July 1993 with Judy and Lucy
On our way to Edinburgh
So softly in the summer night
Your fragile vessel has set sail,
Back through your Irish Infancy,
Bound for the Islands of the Blest.
We stand upon our adult shores
And through the curtain of our tears
Perceive at last, in all its grace,
Your loving presence in our lives.
Now comes the gathering of our years,
the harvest of our childhood days,
And in the barns of memory
We store the blessings
of your love.
For my brothers and sisters
In loving memory of our Mother 1903 – 1992
I have a homing instinct for the stars 
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