Just that extra hour of sleep was poetry enough for me! Then I realised I had not posted this sent to me by Mr Ira Maine, our Poetry Editor, a wonderful offering from Seamus Heaney that requires no further comment.
The wintry haw is burning out of season,
crab of the thorn a small light for small people,
wanting no more from them but that they keep
the wick of self-respect from dying out
not having to blind them with illumination.
But sometimes, when your breath plumes in the frost
it takes the roaming shape of Diogenes
with his lantern, seeking one just man,
so you end up scrutinized from behind the haw
he holds up at eye level on its twig,
and you flinch before its bonded pith and stone,
its blood-prick that you wish would test and clear you,
its pecked at ripeness that scans you, then moves on.
END