I am not at all sure how many readers understand my love of poetry, and I have a distinct feeling that the great majority are puzzled, if not bored, by my inclination to illustrate many of these columns with poems I like.
But the editor indulges me and I enjoy using poems which strike me in my reading. Here are three which let me share with you.
We all get old much faster than we would like – and the earth is decaying because it is being used too carelessly and neglected too much. Here is a poem by Peter Reading which captures both these unstoppable facts in two quick, brutal stanzas.