Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a re-tuning of the world itself.

A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.

But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.

Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense.

Now it’s high watermark and floodtide in the heart and time to go. The sea-nymphs in the spray will be the chorus now. What’s left to say? Suspect too much sweet-talk but never close your mind. It was a fortunate wind that blew me here. I leave half-ready to believe that a crippled trust might walk and the half-true rhyme is love.

I don't miss teaching. I'm learning to take my time for myself.