[From field notebook, written sometime between November 14 and November 19, 1981. Headingley, Leeds]
The week begins
in blue
and warm - for November;
and comes to an end
in golds
and cold - rushing home
to a heater, to tea;
At 4:30 night
comes on shops and on me
horses of thought stamp impatiently
at cold-metal carriages, with seats of black leather,
and time is a lantern hung among trees
my cape of night rainbows
and I among chimneys
as coal smoke
and cold rains
below me
unblend
in a crystal of dreaming
in midnight of day;
And I from my window
see the world burst in flame:
Here in the cinders, dark beneath the wood:
These valley-blown embers
and all above burning,
fire in clouds, in rain mist and lowering
darkness and brightness round dinner-lights flurring.
Churches' bells flying in sparks stirred and dying,
darkness, and comfort, and peace end the day.