Thankyou Note

For the unbidden swish of morning curtains
You opened wide-letting sleep-baiting shafts
Of sunlight enter to lie down by my side;
For adagio afternoons when you did the punting
(my toiling eyes researched the shifting miles of sky);
for back-garden evenings when you chopped the wood
and I, incomparably, did the grunting;
(a man too good for this world of snarling- Is not good for his wife-
truth’s the safest lie);

For applauding my poetry, O most perceptive spouse,
For the improbable and lunatic, my darling;
For amorous amnesties after rancorous rows
Like the sweet-nothing whisperings of leafy park
After the blatant noise of a city street
For kindnesses the blind side of my night-moods;
For lamps you brought in to devour the dark