“All I know is a door into the dark”

“I rhymeTo see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”

“He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross, Clearly used to silence and an armchair: Tonight the wife and children will be quiet At slammed door and smoker's cough in the hall.”

“Once off the bushThe fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.I always felt like crying. It wasn't fairThat all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.-Blackberry picking”

“We want what the woman wanted in the prison queue in Leningrad, standing there with cold and whispering for fear, enduring the terror of Stalin's regime and asking the poet Anna Akhmatova if she could describe it all, if her art was equal to it.”

“I shall gain glory or die.”

“Meanwhile, the swordbegan to wilt into gory icicles, to slather and thaw. It was a wonderful thing, the way it all melted as ice melts when the Father eases the fetters off the frostand unravels the water-ropes. He who wields powerover time and tide: He is the true Lord.”