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Sad Steps BY PHILIP LARKIN
Groping back to bed after a piss I part thick curtains, and am startled by The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.
Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky. There’s something laughable about this,
The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart (Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)
High and preposterous and separate— Lozenge of love! Medallion of art! O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,
One shivers slightly, looking up there. The hardness and the brightness and the plain Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare
Is a reminder of the strength and pain Of being young; that it can’t come again, But is for others undiminished somewhere.
