Blackbirds and thrushes
On the frozen lawn,
The shunting yards are white.
At night the wagons
Clanged their messages
Along the lines,
I wonder when they sleep.
The lines run south
Through frozen fields,
My thoughts speed along
But cannot reach you.
Now the sun rises
Over the Devon hills
And black and white cows
Move out to pasture.
31st March 1973
Tired railway sleepers
From long disappeared lines,
Shoring up the earth in
My vertical garden.
In the frozen small hours,
Do your fibres vibrate
In time to the rhythm
Of the five o’clock train
Heading South to Nivelles
Or distant Charleroi?
Tired railway sleepers
From up lines and down lines,
From shunting yards and sheds
In the back of beyond,
From bridges and cuttings,
Tunnels and viaducts,
Do you still groan under
The weight of ghost wagons
with frail human cargoes,
Transported to God knows
What final solution?
February 1995
The flight of a crane
Over still misty canals
Reminds me of Keukenhof
And walking with you.
For Judy
North Holland
23 May 1978
I have a homing instinct for the stars 
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