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