Standards

Mid-April and meaning,

somewhere it means

sand on the wind

and a dry throat.

Elsewhere snow

beyond the reasonable

being tired of ice

and white, cold and

mittens, impatience 

for warmth without wool,

saying bring us light

and sun and green.

In the west of Ireland

in a small city

steeped in war and histories,

for a child in the sixties

it meant gatherings,

groups of boys roaming

collecting logs and old dressers

tires and inner tubes.

Midnight raids to steal

timber for Bealtaine

and the bonfire.

Crazed nights of music and flames

wishes and lost meanings.

But here and now

mid-April means more magic,

greens of chestnut leaves

over Cook Street

back lit yellowed hues.

Trees with skirts of pink 

turning to understated leafiness

after the flowering.

More blossoms opening:

magnolias, lilacs; 

purples and off-whites,

reds in rushes

of silk and velvet 

flashes,bursts 

of yellow furze invasion.

Planters quit pouring coffee and

swinging hammers, 

gather bags boots and shovels, 

move again to the mountains airs.

A butterfly the size of my thumb-nail

flickers blue and cream

over dark rocks on Dallas road

and the hiss of an ocean

delights in me

the ever fresh wonder

of watching

new nakedness emerge

neither tanned nor jaded.

Poisoning

It started after something
looking back it is difficult to see
how it went unseen, but
it wore a dull coloured coat
that helped it to blend into the everyday
and be unacknowledged for so long.

The cracks in the things
that were one began
as I said, after something,
obliterated by what followed;
the coming asunder of things
made sacred by promise.

It appeared simply;
walking down separate
aisles in the grocery store,
and the shopping cart 

arriving between us
at the checkout, as if it knew.

Lunch and supper-times,
once joint meanderings
became a

rushed relay,

the handover growing
always shorter.

Then like breakfast

that stopped altogether.
At the other end bedtimes began
to include silences and chores.
Small ones at first, a few dishes, 

or cushions that needed patting.

All I know is that it stopped
and by the time it did
I was unable to speak about it
we moved into that
bottomless place
between monogamy and leaving.

Now I name it no-nogamy;
commitment to something
that is no more.

only a crushing,

between desire and shame

until something else, happens.

Planter

I see her descending a cut block,

a broken sky upon her back

her face radiant,

throwing her body

into every single stroke

of her work shined shovel

her hair bounces with

each downward step

and for all that effort

she is not convinced.

No high-baller here

neither the evenings

nor the tenting,

neither the fire

nor the consolation

can fill her heart.

It hangs,

calling back from a room

in her future

where an open page

lamp lit

on an old-oak desk

draws black blood

from her fingertips

siphoning her life

into a story.

Women's Christmas

It was twenty five years ago
just beyond the wedge of winter
that comes early where warmth

from off a wild ocean meets

red rocks of our ancient coast.

On the morning of Nollaig Na Mna
or just before it,

in the brown earth
at the foot of a wall

I was surprised
by a frail yellow thing

'gainst a gush

of calloused green.

A tender whispish first outbreath
of the soft wet ground carried

on its pale, low-sun filled face
the whole of the spring

and summer flowering that follows.
Untamable thing

plucked would not last a hour.

now after all this time the scent

of rosemary on your skin and

on my time hardened hands,

join the primrose

signals of the end of winter,

frail promise of spring

it's coming

Your immanence leaves

taller trees still 

beautifully bare

Grey lithe limbed 
stretch touching 
a swipe swirled canopy.

Below the shrubbery; 

bud and early blossom,

presage green leafy fullness

Intricate tight locked 

layered fleshy pockets

poised and pointed
ready to unfold, 

a timely ordinary 

miracle.

Passion prompted endless 

cyclical blooming.

No neocortex yearning 
for a few days off this year.

No: a bodied

root stem limb

twig bud leaf

fruit and flower.

Surrender 

to the push of

The black ground,

To the pull of

light's  longing.
Summer is coming

Hacky sack

He does not know

where it goes

but it does

it goes beneath,
it goes beneath
and behind
the fallen place.

the place where 

loneliness goes to lay

its frozen thought
on those

it tries to trap

the sack flips

from toe to heel
dragged by her shadow

beneath the light
painting the night

the pavement

and winters bite.

Free
her limbs

a prayer

a poise beneath ,

beneath again

behind,

looped
noiseless practice

a graceful arc

heel to heel
curved communion

arching grace.

Do not lay,

no need to lay
conceptions

holes

beneath

her feet

she liked roses

She liked roses

I have watched through nights

for the perfect rose

and would have reached through

black and twisted bars  

near a mansion had I seen one

but what I got was this

It is no perfected rose

for it grew in my own garden

and many times its mother thirsted

while I, sweating, 
neglected

to bring her water

So take it if you choose

wear it in your hair

do it. near a wild sea,

in wind and rain 

set its fragrance free.