11 NOVEMBER 1995, Page 48

Puddle

In the squeeze of a puddle where the light declines and the rub of cobbles nudge the surface like the backs of whales, I saw my life - shallow, thin and negligible, muddled and utterly inconsequential.

Nipped in the cramp of circumstance I have taken the shape of compliance.

Still and all, I can at least glimpse the flimsy slippage of clouds, and show as if I understood the slow dilution of the sky, and like a kind of miracle bring the heavens down to earth — stars are blossoming underfoot as I dissolve to where I came.

Charles Bennett