No
1 No one is ever good enough,
2 or kind enough.
3 No one stays awake
4 through the lovely rush of rain which fills our dark.
5 No one can hold the music.
6 They are counting coins or frowning
7 they are toppling, they are drowning.
8 No one is good.
9 But nothing is as quick as us,
10 no screen can match us
11 tape’s whirr catch us
12 nothing tilts like sun
13 to light from sad.
14 Nothing in all history
15 can reach to take your hand from me,
16 the dark, the rain’s gift, O
17 we should be glad.
Alison Brackenbury
published in The Times Literary Supplement
