Into White
Passing from day to day has the eyes move Along a colour-chart, flesh-pink to white, But each rectangle with you pausing less.
For example, the late August sunlight — Experienced and worldly, very suave - Soon gets to acquire a weariness That's ready to give way and let the clear Clean September noons in, with taunts of spring You can't believe in: nothing like innocence, Because each day's a kind of hardening Into something more used, a bit more near To a grave's quiet than a womb's. Then, all pretence Has gone with the first frost nights, which design A silvered path towards a raw and cruel Absolute white...You can see it if you stand Under the sky of some November full Moon appalling its own scars with a shine That obliterates, burning the hand You look down at, with its flesh-pink iced away.
Alan Brownjohn
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