Ah Lord - your graciousness

A Glasgow sun and a thermos
Full of tea. Over in the air
The wide blue haze, a plane
Bravely flies at a tangent:
Sharp angle towards heaven,
Levelling in white: angel
Flight with metal wings.

And my heart sings to be here
So: alive, alone, all the loves
Gone to their long home, my
Sunny brother grinning a
Strawberry grin mid-life in
Brighton, and happy there.

This bright blue day of promise
Hits my eyes with personality
And the haze of goid that
Comfits all the small line of
Distant hills. I have known

ill strike me down like sudden
Poison introduced into the heart and
Soul.  The mourning wells are
Deep and black. They make me
Sick with lack and longing. Home

A thing long gone and I must bear
My own belonging to this
Heart and mind, the slender thing
I live in that small and flimsy
Place. But what peace today,
Not a soul on this level, but

Me staring out at the city of my
Birth, wondering at worth and
Work, what compasses all

The ills of one's life and reduces them
To harmony?  I am singing this
Day - in my solitude and fear,
And it does not matter anymore for
There is no-one here to hear.

previous poem