12 JULY 1986, Page 29

A stubborn quiet

God is a great emptiness I know is there: The somewhere else without which Nothing is.

A stubborn quiet noise cannot put out.

Not that I woke And in due course shall sleep. Not that my lot Is pain, and hate, and fear (Much past, More to be got through) But that love, Random but definite, Exists at all: A curious echo from some other place.

Michael Cullup