The day men walked upon the moon

My father died,

Attended kindly by an unloved wife

Who, for charity in the face of death,

Briefly suspended

The bitterness brewed of life.

Dry-eyed we watched the television;

Flickering pictures from outer space

Made history.

But behind my eyes on a white pillow

Was only my father's yellowed face.

Death, like love, in our family

Is decently disposed of

Without undue commotion.

Tears were shamed to silence long ago

There is no superfluous emotion.

AUTUMN 1969

Elms are flared with yellow;

Oaks turn bronze;

Mist swirls along the furrow;

The year grows old.

And the beech trees stand

Root-deep in discarded gold.

I, squirrel-like secrete

About the hollows of my mind

Jewels

To hang upon the world

At other times

When all within

Is uniformly grey,

When poetry fades

And reason

Faces the light of day.

But words cannot retain

Such images;

Only their ghosts remain,

Reminding me how

Through the autumn mist

I prayed involuntary prayers

Of gratitude

To gods that did not exist.

STORM HORSES

The horses of the night in shining darkness fly;

With wings of lightning, hooves of thunder,

The burst asunder

The leaded sky.

The horses of the night in starry waters drink;

With wild eyes gleaming and wild manes streaming,

They follow the storm

To the world's brink.

Then to the sodden earth they glide to take their ease;

With folded wings, eyes full of wonder,

They stand there under

The dripping trees.

UN BLANC DANS LA CONVERSATION

Fear, said I, binds all humanity;

Nations and individuals that dare not give

enough of trust bind but themselves;

Fearing to die we dare not live,

and with conventions build our prison bars

around humanity that could achieve the stars.

Therefore let us break this craven net,

stand forth from our protecting ramparts unafraid

and, with understanding and compassion, not forget,

in that arena by our own doubts made,

that lacking all defences we might be

far safer than in armed impunity

All this I said, believed and must believe;

It is the rock on which the tower of my being stands.

I know no other creed by which to live;

And so I hold with somewhat faltering hands

to this my faith -- this little spark

that must keep burning or my life be dark.

A kindred spark you took and fanned it to a flame.

Alone then in the island of its light

you stood before my door and called my name.

All my desperate hopes in that fire burnt bright

but, afraid, I stood within my castle wall

and of myself gave naught instead of all.

[1962]

TO ROBERT GRAVES

[Who says that perhaps he has valued women too much]

Oh no, rather you underrate us,

To value us only as temples to your muse.

You deny us our humanity,

Casting us in the role of godesses

To propitiate your poetry.

For poetry is a jealous god,

Demanding of his high priest offerings

Of lucid beauty. So you made of each new love

An aphrodite, who showed her mortal soul

and sank back to the sea.

You have seen, because you wished to see,

Latent in the eyes of women,

a vision of immortality,

And from it, with a charm of words,

You made a separate reality.

Your poems live, a lyrical testimony

To poetry -- to love perhaps --

But love itself belongs to people,

Not to poets or to gods, and the air

On Mount Olympus is too rare.

[oct 1967]

Peace is a passing condition;

A brief cessation

of more than hostilities.

It is tangible.

indefinable.

There was a peace in that room

that transcended

the tensions in the air.

Did we share it?

Or was it a gift you gave me,

unaware?

[sept 1967]

FORECAST FOR COASTAL WATERS I

A front of awareness is approaching

from the inner reaches of the mind

and a deep depression is forming in its wake.

Winds will be strong, gale force at times,

and veering north-east.

Visibility variable.

FORECAST FOR COASTAL WATERS II

Coastal waters are fraught with fear,

Shadowed with pity and poetry.

When the waves are wild and the rocks too near,

I wonder, why do I haunt here

And not in some sheltered territory?

There must be safer seas by far,

Paths where one can fare less lonely

And can steer by a constant star.

But this is where my torn roots are

And I can live here only.

When the light is breaking from cloud to cloud

And the forecast tells of peril that lurk,

It isn't courage that keeps me proud

Or call me on through the sea's sad shroud

To the dangers I dare not shirk.

It's love of the awful loveliness

That lies on the fringe of things,

Where solitude speaks to loneliness

And the truth of the soul that we can't express

Breaks from the wave and sings.

She Drove Off Without Me

Written by Teifi Dog while Daf was away

The boss has gone; I'm a lonely dog;

I haven't the spirit to prowl;

I look at my biscuits with jaundiced eye

And I sit by the door and howl.

I am the back-seat-driver,

I should be there in the van;

It's me that keeps an eye on the road,

Not a damned computer plan.

The rain is dripping, the sheep are wet;

I can't be bothered to bark;

I don't give a damn what the ducks are doing;

My world has gone woefully dark.

Wispy, promiscuous bitch,

Is making eyes at the sitter;

But I am a serious collie dog

And I say it doesn't befit her.

I know that we've been dumped

While the boss goes off on the spree.

It ain't right; she loses all sorts of things,

But never drives off without me.

Requiem for a Social Conscience

I do not know her name;

We do not ask these things

When pity is confused with shame;

But she is bent and lame

And old. Her face expresses nothing

But age and cold.

And daily almost she came

To the same place, a crumbling wall

Where, half sitting, holding lest she fall,

She'd wait beneath the sightless gaze

Of windows curtained nights and days

Against intrusion,

Against even the grimy sunlight,

Against involuntary hopes,

unwelcome there,

Where hopes have often proved

precursors of despair.

And even I, who claim to care,

Passed her daily, smiled,

and did not dare

To trespass further,

But wondered where

She slept, and who else was there.

I too have curtains on my brain,

But they are ragged

And cannot keep out the pain

Of solitude unsought and the stain

Upon my consciousness

Of one unknown old woman

Wearing slippers in the rain.

COVENTRY CATHEDRAL

A torn cross of crucified metal

Like the twisted girders of a city seared with war

Stands in silent serenity.

There is no figure on it;

The pain is not individual

Nor is it long ago.

Outside, with a trust that is undeserved,

The ruins of the old reach out to touch the new;

Forgiveness in stone,

Raised by the hands of men

Perhaps in the half knowledge

That no longer can we say,

"We know not what we do."

Here man himself has risen again,

Knowing and defying all the inhumanities

That man inflicts on man.

These stark walls testify to truth, to hope.

Kneel not, pilgrim;

Here one can worship standing up.