Hush now. You cannot describe it.
Is it like heavy rain falling,
and lights going on, across the fields,
in the new housing estate?
Cold, cold. Too domestic, too
temperature, too devoid of history.
Is it like a dark windowed street at night,
the houses uncurtained, the street deserted?
Colder. You are getting colder,
and too romantic, too dream-like.
You cannot describe it.
The brooding darkness then,
that breeds inside a cathedral
of a provincial town in Spain?
In Spain, also, but not Spanish.
In England, if you like, but not English.
It remains, even when obscure, perpetually.
Aged, but ageless, you cannot describe it.
No, you are cold, altogether too cold.
Aha-the blue sky over Ampourias,
the blue sky over Lancashire for that matter…
You cannot describe it.
… obscured by clouds?
I must know what you mean.
Hush hush.
Like those old men in hospital dying,
who, unaware strangers stand around their bed,
stare obscurely, for a long moment,
at one of their own hands raised-
which perhaps is bigger than the moon again-
and, then, drowsy, wandering, shout out, ‘Mama’.
Is it like that? Or hours after that even:
the darkness inside a dead man’s mouth?
No, no, I have told you:
you are cold, and you cannot describe it.
By Dannie Abse
from A Small Desperation (1968)
Rambling At The Bridge Head 