A Page of Verse
Just a piece of paper- by Amelia May Kingston
Phew! - by Dannie Abse
At the end of the day - by Clive Williamson
As
I crossed the street
I
saw a piece of paper
Lying
in the gutter.
The
wind caught it,
Teased
it,
Fluttered
it along.
End
over end it danced.
And
I laughed.
Then
it soared away,
Higher
and higher,
On
the wind.
And
I cried.
Just
a piece of paper,
Fluttering
down the street.
But
I thought...
If
the right wind came along...
I
could do that...
Amelia
May Kingston.
“Do
you know that Sumerian proverb
‘A
man’s wife is his destiny’?
But
supposing you’d been here,
this
most strange of meeting places,
5000
years too early? Or me,
a
fraction of a century too late?
No
angel with SF wings
would
have beckoned,
‘This
way, madam, this way, sir.’
Have
you ever, at a beach,
aimed
one small pebble
at
another, thrown high, higher?
And
though what ends
happily
is
never the end,
and
though the secret is
there’s
another secret always,
because
this, because that,
because
on high the Blessed
were
playing ring-a-ring-o’-roses,
because
millions of miles below,
during
the Rasoumovsky,
the
cellist, pizzicati,
played
a comic, wrong note,
you
looked to the right, luckily,
I
looked to the left, luckily.”
Dannie Abse
[I am grateful to Dannie Abse for permission to reproduce this poem]
The sea dances on the water;
A thousand shimmering stars
All longing to be free.
This heart crosses hill and mountain;
Lakes, rivers, seas;
But finds no peace at home.
This heart belongs in another place
Where earth and sky meet,
Rub shoulders and embrace.
They cleave together in
Unexpected union;
Two elements become but one symbol.
The horizon and my heart are one,
And as the sun sets
With a warmth that touches deep inside -
Orange rippling red -
This heart cries out
And flies to meet day's end - tomorrow's beginning
Clive Williamson