Winter 1941

by Edward Keyes

Reading Hopkins recalls
sinister sound of sirens
chilly, hasty dressing
in the bleak vicarage bedroom.
Hot foot to ARP post
reciting "The Starlight Night"
(He far from war, yet torn
by interior conflict
welling up of untimely verse
contending with monkish scruples).

Yet that winter the worst over
no bomblight crossed starlight.
Cups of tea, idle chatter
filled tiresome, waiting hours
until "all clear" returns us to sleep
safe under these aeonian stars.