Outcast

Sometimes the ache is unendurable.

Born upon the tide of loneliness

The need is hurled ashore

A castaway,

And lies among the sea-wrack of my soul.

Pounded by the surges of the world

It lies inert and motionless.

The night is coming when no man shall hope.

Only the burning sands defile the lips,

For who shall succour them?

The careful hands, though curled, are empty now.

With every breath I draw

The need is wracked;

With every sigh it lies

A-quivering

Transfixed with mocking arrows of despair.

And yet it will not die.

(Undated, 1961?)

This Man

And do you know this man, they asked?

You said: I know this man.

You did not lie -

You knew his outward seeming,

Crumpled shirt,

Straight-slipping hair

(so fine, so free from government),

The sun-burned skin,

The crooked fingers;

You saw the dust of travelled days

Etched shadowy upon him.

You listened, sometimes, as he told his tales

With merry eyes

(Such far-blue eyes, the ice-blue eyes of Northern men),

And saw his lips break sweet apart

To let the sound of joy

Beat forth...

You knew him

Yet

You knew him not;

No more did I.

Did any know

That underneath the outward seeming,

There behind the mask of laughter,

Stunned, slow-bleeding lay the spirit

Of a man betrayed?

By whom, you ask?

Why, friend, by love;

By youth;

By hope.

I could not know his hurt,

Not then;

And yet my heart reached out to his

To comfort and be comforted.

The morning I awoke

To feel his breath

Upon my cheek,

The new lights quickened,

Sunlight stabbed the last grey shades

And then I knew the hour would come -

Oh, quickly come! -

When we would hold each other

Close

And he and I would pass out time

In loving pain away;

And then his hands found mine

(Such strong, such gentle hands),

Grew fast in bonds that bound us two

So long, so far...

I do not know the man I love

And yet I thank God daily

That he is.

His spirit healed,

My love, my youth, my hope

Shall not betray.

(1961)

Blakeney

Shadowed by the nodding houses,

Stabbed and barred by wind-tossed sunlight

Walks the alley to the sea.

Angled masts there groan aloud -

Mocked beneath the autumn sky -

And beg the thrust of sea-soaked canvas

Now denied;

Their burgees flutter sullenly

High above the lolling hulls

Left haphazard,

Tossed away like wind-curled willow leaves.

Low tide.

Mesmeric shadows weave a course

Wild and silent on the mud:

The sea-birds scream

And wing away their lives in rhythmic motion.

Look down.

The web-foot trail

Leads surely out across the trembling ooze

To reach the water;

The narrow water wanders out,

Tenuous and lipped with light,

Zig-zag, zig-zag, scarcely stirring,

Flattened onwards to the sea.

Out, far out, the flood wall goes

Lapped by marshes,

Green and gliding;

Cows, like ships, slow moving convoys,

Lifting heads to smell the breezes,

Tang of samphire, mud and brambles;

And the path goes onward still

High above the silver slashes,

Marshy ripples, tufted sedges,

Weeds and gull-pools

Sky-reflecting,

Blue and hazy,

Lazy sleeping in the blowing;

Clouds quick-scudding,

Sailing, streaking, overhead;

Water laughing, witch green, sparkling;

Yellow smear of distant sand-spit,

Smudging lonely in the distance;

North sea silent,

Drowned in quiet, pulsing sounds of life and solitude.

(1961)