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I've just finished interviewing for the Bloomsday edition of The Book Programme (16 June). Kinsella, now 79, has just been granted the freedom of the city of Dublin; a very rare honour indeed -- in fact, he's the first artist to be given the award in sixty years. In his early thirties, Kinsella wrote this haunting, disturbing and utterly beautiful reflection on the experience of growing older and on the dawning realisation that perfection evades us all. As poems go, on the other hand, Kinsella's work comes very close to perfection.

Mirror in February
by Thomas Kinsella

The day dawns, with scent of must and rain,
Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.
Under the fading lamp, half dressed - my brain
Idling on some compulsive fantasy -
I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.

It seems again that it is time to learn,
In this untiring, crumbling place of growth
To which, for the time being, I return.
Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.

Below my window the wakening trees,
Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced
Suffering their brute necessities;
And how should the flesh not quail, that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young, and not renewable, but man.