no coral reef

it is no more than a small misery not to eat
for hours and to stay calm while the thirst
rises within you but that is not the worst
it seems like each hour is a new defeat
you wait and wait and the results that greet
your eyes provoke no great outburst
and you think in the night this is the first
of these exercises over time there's more
and each involves the same humiliation
the weakness that the mind seems to imprison
you hope in vain for that now longed-for shore
but in the meanwhile you fear discorporation
but later you'll feel better when arisen

the gold of life

it won't change the fact that the sunlight cheers
to say the day's been cold and the wind rough
these are the merest civilised veneers
that keep the mind alert and clear and tough
what happens when the weather at last turns
will matter at that time not one moment before
each day gives us the things that hard work earns
and we will all the harsher parts ignore
not for us now the messages that warn
of stranger times and things we cannot know
but that we will without compunction scorn
the things that are no more than lively show
what happens when the sun heads down the hill
is of no import in full we've paid the bill