On some days, poetry is my window into how someone else sees the world.

On days like that, I might read Anthony Watt’s poem and experience it as a beautifully crafted set of images, juxtaposed like a stained glass window, to capture the power and the beauty of a sunset.

On other days, poetry is a mirror bringing my thoughts and emotions into focus.

Today was that kind of day and I found I wasn’t imagining yet another miraculously beautiful sunset. I was thinking of the forest fires in Portugal and the massive floods in Slovenia and my imagination went to a different kind of ‘End Of The Day’. One in which climate change announces itself with ‘a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied’ to quote a different poet.

Today, the old world turning in its rusty socket seemed less like an affectionate description of a long-known loyal companion and more like a warning that the old world is almost done and the new one is yet to be seen.

The ragged sky burning was not a colourful metaphor but a forecast of a near and perhaps no longer avoidable future.

The sea slopping in the moon’s bucket spoke to me of waters rising, tides changing and the Gulf Stream collapsing.

So when I read of the sun’s penny dropping, I didn’t smile at the clever humour, I just hoped that I would not live to see it.

Some days, perhaps, it would be better not to open a poetry book.