De Brakke Hond, No. 76, 2002

De Brakke Hond is a literary magazine published in the Netherlands featuring works in Dutch and Flemish. No.76 was a special bilingual Irish Number published in 2002. Nessa O'Mahony was the irish editor.The number is now online in the archive section. See
http://www.brakkehond.be/index.html

The "Beginning of Science" was a poem that took me a long time to write. I like the atmosphere in it;I don't think I could catch it again.

The Beginning of Science

Long before Saint Patrick,
leather-footed musicians
would keyhole dawn
to catch the sun in ice candles.

They played those flames on strings,
their spikes of sound,
for children's whistling eyes and lunatics
who, in their distance, danced.

Fire caged in ice, ice in their hands;
music lit from within.
Ambition began;
separation became a beauty.