25 JANUARY 1992, Page 32

At the Edge

Was it the blouse-and-skirt combination, the cut Of the fair hair of the near-silhouette Against yellow sea, that made me peer and stare?

I walked by white cliffs with my son who was not Your son, when he came you were gone.

I screwed up my eyes, unfocussed, to see less clear And keep you a moment longer, hold you there.

It has happened before, of course, as though round a corner Impossible things may appear. A middle-aged woman I saw when I secretly led us to where I could see with my back to the sea, who had nothing in common With you save stature and stoop and short-cut yellow hair.

We continued. Not self nor pain nor fate is here or there, But relentlessly turns us to souls that peer and stare.

P.J Kavanagh