1 August 2000

The purple buddleia has outreached itself;
Distended tendrils clog the narrow garden;
Drab blackbirds feed their damp prodigious young;
A woodpigeon calls the cows in after rain.
A quarter century! Its shrubs and birds
Growing, declining in the seasons' dance,
As I find, baffled by a long wet summer,
An unexpected break, another chance.


My Chelsea

My grandmother lived in a first-floor flat in Chelsea:
10 Limerston Street, a staid unfashionable bit.
She would not have thought of herself as exotic.

But I did, marvelling at her innocent grandeur,
Knowing that she would always be right,
As resonant and inclusive as her radiogram,
...