We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.

Never here the risk of
the missed catch, the lost
‘bus, the possibility of the
bottom falling out of the
lotus-market; the certainty that
the face we love will be no longer
there; that one day all this Noddy stuff will dissolve
and Andy Pandy suffocate in his dream-box.
On this island the sun casts no
shadows; amaranth survives without
rain; no fly in the
appointments, chloramine in the
water; no valley in our
alley.

And therefore no
pungent hush as the shower comes down
to rescue the fifth
Test; no final poignant kiss
on the cold cheek of the
dead; just the usual boring
immortelles, the assurance of
helichrysum, the illimitable Tithonus dawns.