11 MAY 1985, Page 31

A Birth

As slowly they collapse with strokes, cancers, booze, the ones who dandled us, our warm life falls apart, an eggshell; what comes out is us, at best cadet wrinklies, fledgling gnarled persons.

We can't face up to that, not now! At every corner the bullying past, not the future, tortures with imperfections in how we used our rations of love and insight when we lived in albumen.

I look along the lane where I first dandled one and we first lived together (every house since then nearer bad weather) and want my ration back and hear the eggshell crack.

P. J. Kavanagh