Behind the house on a bright spring day
When the sun at last had come to stay,
A woodpecker tapped on a hollow tree
And sent secret messages down to me.
He tapped all the morning and then flew away,
What did he tell me? What did he say?
“The summer is coming, it won’t be too long!”
That was the gist of the woodpecker’s song.
19.2.77
One ragged scarecrow alone in a field
Waves to the train which is gathering speed.
Two long-billed storks perched on a rooftop
Stand on one leg and bask in the sun.
Three whitewashed windmills turn in the wind,
Pumping the water or grinding the corn.
Four painted barges in nose-to-tail line
Follow their leader along the canal.
Five white ponies in a buttercup field
Scamper away at the sight of the train.
Six mottled cows at the red stable door
Wait to be milked at the end of the day.
Seven bells chiming high in the steeple,
Telling the time to the people below.
Eight wooden clogs on eight pretty feet
Dance on the cobbles beside the canal.
Nine fishing boats tied up at the quay
And fishermen drying their nets in the sun.
Ten children of Holland cycling to school
Wait by the bridge for the train to go by.
And in and out among the flecks of foam
White sea-birds rose and fell upon the wind,
No different from the moving curves of spray
Until into the sky they rose and stayed
And joined the flocks which flew beside the ship,
All drawn along and upward in our wake.
Upon the starboard bow the distance broke
And there between the ocean and the sky
The land appeared, its highest peak concealed
By cloudy streamers, ribbons of the wind,
Its earthbase anchored in the purple depths
Among the corals and the waving weeds.
Our arrival in Seychelles by sea from Bombay,
After a journey of five days, July 1968
I have a homing instinct for the stars 
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