Poem by Kevin Higgins On St. Patrick's Day

My very first featured poet at Eyewear was the Irish poet and critic Kevin Higgins, who was then about to marry poet and writer Susan Millar DuMars. This poem is from Kevin's debut collection, The Boy With No Face, from Salmon. The poem was written for Susan. Both of them have new collections out this spring 2010 - they'll be reviewed here in the goodness of time. Meanwhile, it seems like a good idea to welcome St. Patricks Day with a poem by Higgins.

The requiem plays, though not for us

Let’s never gaze at each other
across an unbridgeable space,
(even through cold panes of glass
may our fingers reach and touch)
nor battle, separated,
through the mobs of shoppers
and the caustic weather
of a raw November thoroughfare.
May the music we make
be a Spanish guitar,
let no disconsolate adagio
be any creation of ours
and if, of an evening,
you happen to catch me listening
to Mozart’s requiem,
it won’t be our union
that sombre music
will be mourning.

poem by Kevin Higgins

Comments

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