It was a great sadness to learn of the loss of dear George J Carroll - on my mother's birthday, as it happens. My thoughts are with all who love and remember him with fondness.

For George J Carroll, much-loved poet on AD


I shall never forget your kindness
to me: alien, green Brit
in the bright constellation
of your stellar city.

Or that train rumbling along
the Long Island track,
you meeting me, knocking me back
with your breath-taking bear-hug
the strength of a man half your age!

Your family’s Levittown welcome,
a tea of English predilections: Earl Grey,
Cheddar cheese, cucumber sticks
before the clack-clickety-click
back down the rails
to Manhattan book fairs and sales.

Then the surprise package arriving
in England – who can this be from? –
which I drove to claim from customs:
a box five feet by three (bigger than me!)
containing Titanic, beautifully modelled,
her voyage safely made and intact…

But much more than that:
your poems – clear, honest,
always your own, honed,
collected into your many
books of ‘Thoughts’ and
dedicated always to your
‘Loving Bride Florence’
who, even though separated
by death’s cross-currents,
remained your actuary,
anchor, life’s sanctuary.

Thank you, George, for your shelter:
the wisdom of your life-affirming words;
the warmth of your friendship,
your faithful support for us,
your AD fellow-writers’ herd.

Thank you, too, for your light –
the light that radiated
from your bodily strength
and features; inner light, too,
that you were never afraid of
but freely shared, nurtured.

The light which will always
be shed abroad in grateful ways,
which remains to brighten
the uphill paths of all our days;
rays of your generous gifts
which forever encourage us to shine,
what once was ‘yours’ now turned to ‘mine’.

The ‘hill you climbed’ has now
plateaued at its glorious zenith,
greets you with its long-awaited dawn,
its arms open wide:

Rest in peace, dear friend,
reunited with your eternal Bride.