In the cab there was a song.

Not one I would have chosen, but

of which I remember, in my way,

some words without the tune. Also,

the driver—that his coat

was kindly. How is it

that the wrinkles in his coat-back

were almost tender? his small hands

taking from yours

my clothes, my belongings.

You’re stepping back now

behind the gray slats

of the gate. Your hand, the right one,

lifts through the fine rain, causing me

to look back at myself

as your memory—a constancy

with its troubled interior

under the rained-on glass.

Looking out, I’ve moved already

into thought. The tunnel

on the train gives and returns my face

flickering across the winter fields,

the fields—their soft holdings 

of water, of cows breathing warmly

over the tracks of birds. Sudden then

as light to the pane—an open fire

near a shed, wilder

in the stubble and light rain

for how it seems intended

to burn there

though no one is standing by.

Belfast. November. 1976.