The Childhood of Bertrand Russell

I cannot grieve for newly shattered crockery

nor shed a tear for shards of splintered glass.

To simulate distress were hollow mockery.

They are of dust. Once more to dust they pass.

How wise your words, my son, for every platter,

composed of ordered particles of dust,

assumes again the natural state of matter,

and entropy increases, as it must.

Birdsong

Between birdsong and dawn

night slipped away

barefoot across the lawn.

Between birdsong and dawn

her perfume lingered on

to fade before the day. 

Between birdsong and dawn

night slipped away.

lightly

lightly and lightly adorned in a ripple of never

passing invisible out of the now we have known

into another redemption, another forever

 

lightly and lightly dismissing a burden of sorrow

slipping inviolate into a deeper beyond

softly to follow a dream of unending tomorrow

 

lightly and lightly begun what can never be ended

lost in a filigree universe spiralling free

free as the balm of a moment we never intended

Looking Out

beyond the rowan

(lime green fronds, musician's hands awakening)

an olive-yellow poplar

(lighthouse-proud, this slow slow dancer)

yearns for the hill

  

two figures walking

(silhouettes, fleas on a rabbit's ear)

closeness a hard won summit

(Hereford and all of Wales below)

and you, the other