16 NOVEMBER 1985, Page 31

Ember Music •

The raked-out coals are glowing in the hearth, Crisp, cokey, light,,they jingle on the grate Like tiny chimes blown by their own last heat. The chimney draws-their music up; its breath Excites them into flower — flame-petal wreath To all of day that's fallen through and spent. The rest is ash, no more than ash; once burnt It says: each nightfall is a 'kind of death.

We crouch to warm our hands against the mesh And listen for the tin-foil threnody.

You call it sleigh-bells distant over ice, I think of spheres: the way the world turns once Froth dawn to darkness in a day; the rest Is ash, no more than ash, and powdery.

Stuart Benson