Linked arms, looking into the future,
my daughters, in jim-jams,
bought from the Sunday markets,
off the Thame Road,
their beautiful young faces!
I picture a world
imbued with all the scattered sadnesses of time,
so rhymes this over-flowing mind of mine.

Looking then seeing,
you, as you never can be again,
with all the holy blemishes of youth
leaves me here, bereft,
floundering between  sky and sea,
stuck on the saddest shore of moon and wave and tide:
salty, stirred with the ever-present tang of regret.