“I know the colour rose, and it is lovely,
But not when it ripens in a tumour;
And healing greens, leaves and grass, so springlike,
In limbs that fester are not springlike. . . .

So in the simple blessing of a rainbow,
In the bevelled edge of a sunlit mirror,
I have seen visible, Death’s artifact
Like a soldier’s ribbon on a tunic tacked.”

—Dannie Abse, Pathology of Colours, from A Small Desperation, 1968.