Throughout the winter and spring of this year I worked away painting for a book called Starlight Starbright. The story begins with the nursery rhyme

Starlight, starbright

First star I see tonight

I wish I may, I wish I might

Have the wish I wish tonight.

In the book the child wishes for a paper boat and sails away to adventures on the sea.

Now I am painting polar bears, and while I do it my house is being peeled away, the roof removed, rotten timbers piled high, old slates revealed. So difficult to work, to find the time an dthe peace of mind in which to paint and write and dream.

So now I wish. And even though I know that a wish spoken can be a wish broken, still I write about my wish. I wish to sail away on a boat to the southern lands of ice and snow and watch penguins and see the moon by whalelight and look up at a sky where the dark is pinned in place and held up by different patterns of starlight. I want to see the great cross of the albatross, and light on the ice, starlight and sunlight.

Maybe if you write a wish it does not break it as much as if you speak it. So I wish and so I hope.