Reflections – Frank Wood

The George Crabbe Memorial Poetry Competition
1989 Crabbe Memorial Competition – First Prize
Adjudicators: John Purkis, Roland Young

The night is too young to think of missed opportunities.
Regrets may come later, in the small hours,
when owls and insomniacs haunt the night.
The light from this late room violates the darkness,
but I like the picture I see in the uncurtained window:
that other room encompassing the foliage;
mimicking the impedimenta of my own:
brass clock; black, angled lamp; The Scotsman Calendar
hanging on the identical mustard-coloured wall.
And there’s another me, who may have no regrets,
having lived a guileless and well-planned life.
He looks well enough, and if the laurels in his hair
are raspberry leaves, that’s fruitful, it seems.
I envy him his serenity and complacence
and wonder what he’s saying with his pen,
but he turns off his lamp and disappears.

Copyright © Frank Wood 1989