Verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty - R. S. Thomas

I am like a tree, From my top boughs I can see The footprints that led up to me.

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receeding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Ah, what balance is needed at the edges of such an abyss. I am left alone on the surface of a turning planet. What <p> to do but, like Michelangelo’s Adam, put my hand out into unknown space, hoping for the reciprocating touch?