Anam Cara

in the tenderness of morning,

no intoxication

of thoughts that open horizons

where rooms are low,

nor the sever of spring

under the grid of old words

that has set on our skin,

nor my favorite blue,

the cobalt

colour of silence.

No.

All I want

is your two hands

pulsing in mine,

the two of us

back in a circle

round our love.

Love Notes

Your clear shoulder

when the clothes have gone

seems so sure of us.

Gently, hands

caress and kindle

the glow, the skin

delights to know.

Your tongue,

a tiny peninsula

curves, stretches

longing to give way.

Currents swell, calm,

flow blue flamed

and sea sweat

beads flesh.

Scruples of hair

linger across your eyes,

order tossed to the wild.

Sounds entwine,

say our names,

the roar becomes

a whisper to

breathe clay open.

And the return

is from a distant kingdom,

where they were

neither mirrors

nor eyes.

Found

The flow of your voice

loosens the sand

that clings to my skin;

in a last rasp of whisper

the red salt stops its torment.

Soft and warm

you encircle me,

into the cave of my ear

your lips infuse a mantra,

over and over

to coax the well awake.

From the Womb Before the Dawn

This evening

everything rests

in clusters of light.

I can see you,

a woman who belongs

to the dawn.

Your hair is

innocent with dew.

With you

the night is shy,

it gathers itself

into the dark moons

of your eyes.

As you walk,

secrets repose

inside you.

When the anger

of the wind

rushes you,

be still,

remember

your primitive cradle.

Conamara in Our Mind

It gave us

the hungry landscapes,

resting upon

the unalleviated

bog-dream,

put us out

there, where

tenderness never settled,

except for the odd nest

of grouse mutterings

in the grieving rushes,

washed our eyes

in the glories of light.

In an instant

the whole place flares

in a glaze of pools,

as if a kind sun

let a red net

sink through the bog,

reach down to a forgotten

infancy of granite,

and dredge up

a haul of colours

that play and sparkle

through the smother of bog,

pinks, yellows,

amber and orange.

Your saffron scarf,

filled with wind,

rises over your head

like a halo,

then swings to catch

the back of your neck

like a sickle.

The next instant

the dark returns

this sweep of rotting land,

shrunken and vacant.

Listen,

you can almost hear

the hunger falling

back into itself.

This is no place

to be.

With the sun

withdrawn,

the bog wants to sink,

break

the anchor of rock

that holds it up.

We are left.

Arrival

I am gone, further out now

than the infant day I forsook

the feather water of the womb,

my wet skull snailing through

the skin tube, its elastic tight

blinds every feature of my face.

I fall over a sudden edge

into the open vacant light;

I dangle for a while from

the skin line like a bait

until gravity swallows me,

seals me in my skin shape.

Since then something within me

strains through the closed pores

of words to get its echo out,

but becomes dumb again

when it hears their foreign voices

mangle outside what is tender within.

But now …

I open like a swift breeze

over a meadow of clover

seamless, light and free;

helplessly, everything in me

rushes together towards

the dark life of your eyes.

First lines

I

Air Holds Echo

They are to be admired those survivors

What did you see (when you went out)

As it leaves (the sea inscribes)

You caught him out, (the one form)

On the day when (the weight deadens)

Where did you go (when your eyes closed)

Not (the blue light of his eyes)

I envy (the slow old)

No (don’t cry)

Was it evening in Barcelona, when

II

Hungers of Distance

Beneath me sleep

I am not sure you (live anywhere, no)

The Good Friday altar is bleak

Oh (the white utopia)

Receive the night

A thurible swings (longingly)

The moon (came down)

Too long stranded in the air, the land loves

This land would like to fold

Near me (scents of bath oil)

I wish for (swiftness)

I sit, alert (behind the small window)

Through this fester of bony earth, trying

The first breath of morning breaks the dark enough

It is an old habit to praise the light

Left unto itself, the earth is one field

The undertaker has a low, slow voice

In the beginning

III

Clay Holds Memory

November’s hunger strips the fields, its thin light

The clay (first breathed)

Night would not let me in

These stones in the wild

The dark inside us is sistered outside

From where she is (he seems singular)

Tight ground (grips you)

Concealed within daylight

She has become (a country woman)

Impaled in fright

In the sunday church

Under the frame (of their stubborn farm)

Since what is (gradual becomes less)

No blind hubris (did this to her)

IV

Icons of Love

Our love is (a sister of the light)

Before this line of shore was touched by tide

Pain can turn the heart’s cradle

Winter colours creep (towards you, cold)

After (all the words)

My love, (your questions)

I can no longer trust my voice, its white

I would send a raven

A circle of white wind

From you (I don’t want anything new)

Your clear shoulder (when the clothes have gone)

The flow of your voice

This evening (everything rests)

It gave us (the hungry landscapes)

I am gone, further out now

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