Happy St. Patrick's Day! While in Ireland over the weekend, I picked up an anthology edited by a colleague of mine, the poet and short story writer Paul Perry. His Best of Irish Poetry 2009 is well worth the Amazon order it may take to wing it across some wide water. Poets selected include Heaney, Muldoon, Higgins, Flynn, Boran, Groarke, Laird, Longley, McGuckian, Mahon, O'Donoghue - in fact, most of the best of the living Irish poets.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
Comments