Evening on Hampstead Heath

for Geoffrey Gilbert

Mist blessed the trees.
Nature’s soft cunning
had used the woven texture of the trees,
wood-details and blue clouds together running.
Myths of the forest then
were stranded out of time . . .
original sea-things into men
daring to climb
were linked by gaze with the soft clouded blue.
I could believe
I saw, in a legend suddenly made true,
Christ on Christmas Eve.