reserve

The ponds were still. Three ducks drifted among plants in the sunset. They were curious when I threw bread but they refused to come near.

England were playing Israel at Wembley; it was also the last night of the Proms.

Next week, said the greengrocer, he hopes to have turnips.

What was it you saw?

I thought it was a frog, disturbed, that made the drooping water-peppers move while I crossed the bridge.

Hi buddy, said the boy in the lead. They filed past us; already begun drinking.

Spiders had pulled the stiff, dry grassheads this way and that, bending them towards a focus that gleamed when you went closer. Thus too they build in the happy space between a car and its wing-mirror.

Of us, like nature, it shall be said that we didn't join in. No, it won't be said. The flags waved. It was a lovely evening.

On another bridge high over the river, two boys crossed precariously not on the walkway but balancing on the hand-rail. Elevated voices of their mates.

*

    How different we are, spread dark into ripe disfigured
    channels, since last we walked across the frame

    of this four-line aperture, come and view it,
    what is all we show through, since it has my name.

*

    I know; my poems are weaker. I am weaker, too.
    Through widening holes in the system

    our lives leak; a course of packets thicken into clutter.
    This isn't mine to be still with, but a diarist.