Come death suddenly from the sea or cloud,
With the blast of thunder and the blinding shroud,
Come death suddenly from the sea or cloud,
With the blast of thunder and the blinding shroud,
My nine-hours son, so wrinkle-faced
Wry concentration of distaste
To find your Person so displaced,
… obliterating in instant mini-time
a universe of suns and planets
with or without their myriad forms of life,
These are my personal favourites among my father’s poems. To me, they are those that reflect personal experience and feeling to which I most respond. A poet will always write for an audience – why else write at all? Michael…
Ten years since that incalculable day
When from all worlds we know you slipped away
Knowing the time was short
Yours was the instant thought
‘Let’s go up to the Rocks!’
Six years since your last birthday in our midst
seems yesterday, in this same so-loved house,
Down arches of the years I hear your voice
explaining serials of our late departures,
Spring, at a bound. Once more the colourful chorus,
Daffodils first declare their lyric yellow,
My love, I watch you thread your way, and turn
with a small timeless smile, and trail your trolley
unhurried through the gate of no return.