[for Trevor]

I am as much as anything
that something which gave me

so many connected
with what could fire

a sunlight characteristic
if quieter this time:

the shortening days
and some savage asides,

but today brings
yet more books

and just as the real summer
we look ahead for better.

I try to find somewhere
of honest appraisal

in the emergence of these days,
so little to utter

without a bit of warmth
yet I am glad

to have this intellectual
independence more reminiscent

of somewhere there was no doubt
and I believe in fully.

It must have been
in the genes

this dappled characteristic
as we will now call it.