Shoreham Nights

Not too far back
is a country lane,
and there,
beneath a Shoreham oak,

(his night's work done -
           the moon gone down )

sleeps Samuel Palmer, artist,
angel-droppings in his beard and hair.

The Statue

It was in the Pursuit of Beauty
that he found True Greatness.

There is a statue, in his honour,
at the summit of Seven Martyrs Hill,

one great, bronze, arm forever raised,
its fingers extended,

as though, desperately,
reaching out to something fleeing.

Snapshot
(1954)

There is a small, tattered, photograph,
black and white:
my mother, and me, asleep, in her arms,
against a backdrop of late winter birches.

She is wearing  a smart, chequered, overcoat; belted.
I am bound up, tight like a pupa, in a heavy woollen blanket.
And on her face is a look of such rapt concern,
as though she knew, even then, that I was utterly defenceless.