Andrew Young looks skywards for his inspiration in his main poem, rather than, as he so often does, to whimsical earth-bound observations.  His Selected Poems are published by Carcanet at £9.95.

          THE STARS

The stars rushed forth tonight

Fast on the faltering light;

So thick those stars did lie

No room was left for sky;

And to my upturned stare

A snow-storm filled the air.

Stars lay like yellow pollen

That from a flower has fallen;

And single stars I saw

Crossing themselves in awe;

Some stars in sudden fear

Fell like a falling tear.

What is the eye of man,

This little star that can

See all those stars at once,

Multitudinous suns,

Making of them a wind

That blows across the mind?

If eye can nothing see

But what is part of me,

I ask and ask again

With a persuasive pain,

What thing, O God, am I,

this Mote and mystery

THE WHITE BLACKBIRD

Gulls that in meadows stand,

The sea their native land,

Are not so white as you

Flitting from bough to bough

You who are white as sin

To your black kith and kin.

looks skywards for his inspiration in his main poem, rather than, as he so often does, to whimsical earth-bound observations.  His Selected Poems are published by Carcanet at £9.95.

          THE STARS

The stars rushed forth tonight

Fast on the faltering light;

So thick those stars did lie

No room was left for sky;

And to my upturned stare

A snow-storm filled the air.

#

Stars lay like yellow pollen

That from a flower has fallen;

And single stars I saw

Crossing themselves in awe;

Some stars in sudden fear

Fell like a falling tear.

~

What is the eye of man,

This little star that can

See all those stars at once,

Multitudinous suns,

Making of them a wind

That blows across the mind?

~

If eye can nothing see

But what is part of me,

I ask and ask again

With a persuasive pain,

What thing, O God, am I,

this Mote and mystery

THE WHITE BLACKBIRD

Gulls that in meadows stand,

The sea their native land,

Are not so white as you

Flitting from bough to bough

You who are white as sin

To your black kith and kin.