My square of window

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My square of window
weeping stars in the blue night,
You asleep upstairs.
I lie awake alone
Breathing in time with you.

Doors clicking softly
In the midnight breeze.
Dark curtains swishing,
Soon to be filled pink
with soft morning light.
The sky cut neatly
By the window frames
Into tiny portions
Like blackberry pie
waiting to be eaten.
Albertine roses
Under the sill tap
The cool cement wall
In their wire moorings,
Moved by the night wind
And their own silent growth.

La Croute. St. Ouen, Jersey. 1967

Three thrushes in the lane

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Three thrushes in the lane
Looking at the ivied
Wall of the front garden.
“Rare sight,” we both exclaimed.
Two hardly moved when we
Drove past into the yard,
The third took fright and made
A low level flight deep
Into the hawthorn hedge
Where he was quickly lost
In the white May blossom.

Giant Tortoises

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Was this the one that carried on its back
The elements of the Earth and caused to break,
By each seismic step, the bulging crust
And fire to flow along the widening cracks?
Was this the one that sightless Aesop knew,
Which furnished fables to a later sage,
And served as tutor to the Roman troop,
Their corporate armour modelled on its shell?

The sun burns down and drifting sand blows through
The whitened carapace but legends live.

Seychelles 1969