London
31 August 2013
Awaiting Liftoff
- Full flight crammed baggage
- We will be gone a long time
- Anticipation
In Flight
- Flying northerly
- Diminishing roads and buildings
- Increasing clouds
Over Night
- Mysterious seas
- of blackness below our plane
- hurrying vastly
1 September 2013
The Tube
- London Underground
- Riders wear coats in the heat
- Roaring clatter
4 September 2013
Dr. Johnson’s House
- In his reading room
- this small volume was Johnson’s
- Seneca’s Tragedies
In Memorium
- St Paul’s cathedral
- a marble Samuel Johnson
- as a togaed Greek
9 September 2013
Natural History Museum
- Charles Darwin presides
- over the bones and the crowds
- more worried than proud
Archaeopteryx fossil
- Archaeopteryx
- the first feathered dinosaur
- emprinted in stone
11 September 2013
The Ghost of a Flea
- Muscular insect,
- darkened and cracked tempura,
- ghost of William Blake.
14 September 2013
British Library
- Ancient manuscripts,
- Beowulf and Guttenburg,
- Wilfred Owen’s draft.
15 September 2013
Eurostar
- Smooth and quiet train
- rushing through green countryside
- Liz and I inside