11 FEBRUARY 1989, Page 42

Not Hereafter

It isn't fear of death I find So disconcerting in my mind, As niggling fears that there might be An after-life where some of me Still clung like creeper, intimations Of my lost mortality Like a church without a clock; Unavoidable invitations To plots or planes of going back.

I've been in hospitals enough To know how strange it is to wake And feel the ambience of love. Diligent death, by your degrees Edge me into the 'artifice Of eternity,' of nothingness.

Patric Dickinson