6 JANUARY 1967, Page 21

Master Plan

He bought stones first in the corners of fields And thorn bushes for birds He bought time like a lotion To smear over the island in an amber light He bought a master plan for the reconquest of the island In such a way that loving bodies Would not lie in the streets in pools of blood Across the only bridge He threw a language barrier In the sea he inserted prohibitive sunsets To change the nature of the invader Growing flowers from the stems of their guns He bought a tomb in the rocks And invested all that was left in the stars.

EMYR HUMPHREYS