Tender is the Night

And all her forgotten beauty

People pass out of sight

On this August midnight

When the serpent and the saviour sit

Side-by-side

Somewhere in old-England.

......

No truths are hidden from our lady moon

No disguising her faint silvery tune.

Such wide-open rosy faces, face the blackest of skies,

Gnarled hands shade their frightened eyes,

No, no,  this is no time for disguise.

......

On this day of flowers, the animals follow

The usual path of the sun.

Ripples coagulate like blood,

All manner of things mirror our big brother sun

On this shining  Ἀρκαδία of August 1914.

.

Sweet airs fill the breezes

Forgotten summer scents,

O! The billowing of  intent

Reed and oak and beech

This beautiful canopy of the living green,

Shimmering in this all-too bright light

Thunder clouds swarm on the horizon

Then rumble out of sight.

.....

A world of endings

As I climb this vertiginous cliff path,

Which connects the now and the then,

Seen in all its chasmal beauty.This is the end.

The brightest of stars

On the blackest of nights.

On this Good Friday in Mosul

The gates of heaven are firmly closed

And the gates of hell a crowded place.