Friday night, a bus-stop, completely dark. Our little group is speaking English. A solitary drunk staggers towards us. We shrink into a defensive circle, avoid eye contact. ‘The birds are flying from the north,’ he says, jabbing his finger at the night sky. We repeat the phrase like children. He goes on his way, steadily now, turns round just once: ‘Remember. The birds.’

Following a request I decided to put this 'evergreen' up. It was written in the 1990s and still seems to speak to people.

Damaged

There's not a single tree in the wood
that isn't damaged.
Yet they grow tall and old
and when at last they fall they are noticed
not by their malformations
but by their absence, sudden blue
astonishments of sky.

Being is its own achieving.
The fabric of things
mends in spans accomplished and the joy
of particular wounds. Do not ask to be cured
nor pass your parcel of injuries
to others. You were damaged, let yourself
be changed, and grow, and live.