Michael Shepherd Woman Poems

We see you every day
on the newsreels
a face like the worn map of tragedy
lined with a life of service
...

She was artistic as a student,
...

As I walked up the pavement, up the slight hill
to the traffic lights at the crossroads outside the station,
I saw her waiting to cross.
Or rather, I saw first, her laugh..
...

Nondescript – her clothes say nothing
except perhaps, ‘neatish’; hair – just there..
certainly quiet; not hiding behind a book
or newspaper; nice eyes, though;
...

How can a mother ever quite forget,
or quite relinquish in her memory,
that state which babies share with saints:
to be free from all desires of mind?
...