Sunlight is the Daffodils

Sunlight is the daffodils growing in brilliant profusion
on the bank beneath the trees.

We sit on the park-bench basking in the light
and, mindful of the shortness of their stay, count our own years,

the rush of our time to an end,
the relentless drift of these beauties on its flow.

Gliondar

Ag siúil ar gconair choille trathnóna geimhridh,
caonach fíorglas mór thimpeall: ar stocaí na gcrainn,
ar na carraigeacha, sna locháin uisce.

An cosán go léir mar srútháin glas os mo chomhair;
sámh ar mo shúile, ciúin i mo chluasa, bog ar bhoinn mo chosa.
Anseo is ansiúd, paistí geal buíglas le solas ghréine

– meangaidh gáire ar aghaidh an nádúir –
iad ag rith aerach mar coileáin a bhí ann
agus mise líonta leis an gliondar a thagann leis an radharc sin.

untitled

The whole countryside’s afluster
a tree is screaming,the meadows quivering,
boulders have clapped hands over their ears.

The word is that the stars have been burgled,
a stream’s stolen the silver,
and a cave, (whisper it), has swallowed the moon.

Martin Hayes Playing

Martin Hayes playing a road’s river sheen in
the last light of a November evening as coal
dust of night collects on the North Clare coast.
Telephone wire is sagging between the poles
and the rough grass fangs in the fading light.

A wind blowing angry off Galway Bay paring
away the skins of the rocks of the Burren hills
carrying splinters of rain and occasional piped
notes from wandering dark specks on the shore.
In the distance one yellow-coloured window

under the dark bulk of a disappearing hillside
at once inviting and shiveringly cold.
The notes flowing like drops of rain along a wire
wind’s metal scraping through that empty place
and the ear of God five miles out to sea.

A Minute Perfection

Nothing is plumb in this old pub:
its walls, doors, floors. The dark-stained wood;
patterned, coloured panes of glass;
brass door-handles, taps; globe light fittings;
fist-fulls of solid-looking black Guinness;
the curlicue conversations turned above glasses:
tulip-shaped, fluted, bulbed, hemispherical.

A beam of street light,
finding an entrance between the doors,
cuts like an acetylene torch across the floor-boards.
Bright needle of light, a minute perfection:
what a glorious thing to see.

Photograph

the page

sucking life

to

nothing

ensuing

sandstorm

plugs

the void

This house is a box;

I am a stone inside it.

When you are here it is home,

and I am a wad of cotton wool.

Scale, Perspective

I’m seeing Ireland’s geography, its east coast stretched before me like a map;

Dublin, Swords, Drogheda, Dundalk, north to the Mournes all in one eyeful.

Sitting here, on this mountain-top, perspective changes, quarrels seem petty,

drowned in the grand scale of view. I think politicians should climb mountains.

I think drug barons and generals, angry motorists and cantankerous neighbours

should be compelled to climb, climb,climb and climb as far as needed

to see their kingdoms diminished to invisibility.

(Failing that, I think if political enemies had to await medical operations in neighbouring beds in hospital wards, a lot of issues would be solved much more quickly.)