A complex of occasions
        a life
three score and ten
        : to have known love
more than once
        and for the memory
to burn as a flame
        in the mind

Yesterday in April still
        the first white butterfly
of the season
        gliding above the debris
in the railway cutting

All things are measures
        of other things
some trees now in flower
        others with foliage
about to burst forth

Beneath the complexity
        the cycles that drive
the natural world
        the song of the nightingale
and the manmade beauty
        of the Grecian urn

and the web of words
        that binds us together
in communities and
        in our homes and
in our hearts
        and in our beds

John Lyons