28 SEPTEMBER 1985, Page 30

A kind of faith

Wandering into dreams My loved and lost ones shake My cool agnostic ways.

He: 'Look how I see again.'

`Let's take that ferny walk We promised ourselves,' she says.

Then from the battleground My brother saunters in Unscarred by fear or flame. `How's that for a dare?' he laughs, Almost as though war's waste Were a mad schoolboy game.

Unnerving presences!

In the heart-thumping dark Waking, I'm called to choose. Bold memory? Or a glimpse Of some bright meeting-place. Religion's good news?

As first light edges round Curtains still closely drawn I drowse between world and wraith: Dawn-stirrings, a clamant bird, And those voices that'll baffle my day Like a kind of faith.

J.C. Hall