A leaf, delicate and torn,
Wafts in the caul of autumn
Like a whisper in a blooming
Crowd and only the smoking
Sun knows the ***** of dreams.
Where in the whirled is wisdom,
As a breath so fairly as the fallen
Wakes without wake nor wonder?
Where in the fork of fawn, innocent
Fold, the gentle does, of the burning
Forest, is silence mute?  Where is a light,
In that hold, what rising colour is buried in
The frozen gleam of the golden and forgotten
Seam and swoon of sweet ephemeral summer?

Who said cemeteries are for the dead?
For those who celebrate such silence
A commotion’s something too.
Crow about the stones, smeared by sun  
All gawking formal and sharply dressed, rung  
A black congregation that drilled and sermoned  
My ears down to coffin nails beneath  
My feet, a voice that hung the wanting
Waves.  

And over head I saw the braised yearling  
Eagle bobbing past the undivided sun,  
Who tottled about the sky in circles out  
Of center, a wearing down of gear
Churning with the grave
Bruising birds, that spoke  
And wheeled over dusty  
Stones.  

Sea spray, leaning trees, slant  
Of cloud, spilt green grass of one  
Sided mosses all pointing which was to be —
The way,  

And leaving there, I saw the sign and it read:  
    ‘Ocean View Cemetery,’
Opens at sunrise —
Closes at sunset.

Her lips misty moist  .  .  .
Spring bursting purple lilacs,
  .  .  .  Ripe aureolas.

Woman,
Why do you visit so seldom, and plant things
In my fallen over garden, lavender and thyme,
Only to leave, but not
To tend?

Woman,
Take my sorrow and turn down the moon,
Plaster the sun in golden dress and spill
The ground with buttons
Of flower.

Woman,
Why does your face haunt me in dreams,
Your voice, play as in the spirit well that sings,
Drops forth, the moving waters
Into being?

Woman,
Take my open hands and travel with me,
Beyond the ninth wave, to the lost island
Of Hy-Brasil, and we will long live,
Wondrous as poetry.

We walked along the grainy ocean,
Our way, smooth as a path to nowhere
And through a dance of reeds your hair,
Steeped with marshes of wings and air,
Red, mellow as fire from the fallen sun,
Your flowered dress was the first spring
Ever germinating and blue crystal waters
Sprung, of coastal pools, Knockanare wells
And I was flung, as a windy clutch of seeds
Dreaming, your voice, bloomy, song wafted,
Rousing, as remembrance in fragrances —
And the moony, blinking stars soon peopled
Our woe-less eyes, full of sleep and vision
And all the stones held us deep as sarsen.

Sprouting new lovers  .  .  .
Walked through sunny spring gardens,  
  .  .  .  Green fingers entwined.

Shelter of sky holds  .  .  .
Falcon stoops only to ****,
  .  .  .  Heaven has a wing.

Flies in the haze morning sputter and splay.
Water drops from leaves rolling with the blown
Blades. The windy whoo of the owls fade,
Blue buried eyes cradled in the hollow
Trees, the swamps seeker is quietly rustled,
Wings of panoply, spangle-speckle the wind,
Over the flames of autumn, talons thistle,
Crown the dominion of the fall, fade in
Sporting meadows colour, till the dive,
Balm of field, marsh, all ignites. Lever pale
Winds finger through the leaves gravely
And rake as you raid, shoulders that burning vale,
Casualties of insect, the lemming song sings
Mouse and vole flash, dark, sparkles the clearing.

I do not envy the man about town,
The shackle suit and morning groom,
The campaign of papers and style,
Whose work a day is but a futile way
And each choice is ruin to the heart.

The pill shaped tables of the board rooms,
Where ink is blood and flesh is facsimile,
Caged in by the cubicle, lets in no breeze,
Only the still air of stifle, encased.
What dreams may die in this dullness  
Of days?
          There is a ringing that will not  
Cease.  There are stalls by the staples, there is  
No peace.  And time is warden either side  
Of the glass doors and with mercenary feet  
And closed eyes he makes his stand, he makes
His choice, he sets his gait, chimes in lock step,  
His voice is hoarse, and all his salary days  
Are trojan.  
  
        No, I do not relish the dog  
Eat dog, nor the barking toes that step so low,  
Even lower than the hangman's boom.  For like  
A slug crossing a busy street he does not fear  
The tread.  He does not know these sounds are clink.  
His thoughts are trapped in folders read, and with  
Mobile cells his ears are pinned and grating-micro-
Waves well cancer to his brain.

Death silences birds  .  .  .
In the plain, carryon fields,
  .  .  .  Crows flying in low.

.
Not fair— her dear swishing body,
The cling of shearing Indian cotton,
Cool nights of wine pouring shoddy,
Broken truths, laid to rest, forgotten.

Love out of touch, we could not bare
Alone, with loosed arms overreaching
And love sparkled dancing,
On the breaking rim of a star,
Innocent and new under the constellations
Of the pinned gods' eyes.

We told ourselves the story of ourselves,
Each one, a penned, perfect fable,
Each one a journey into the dark,
Under the faint and rising milky ways,
Where even shadows, poor,
Are always, almost, lost.

Out of conception, and pining dream
And the myths we most want to make,
Out of dream, would we soon awaken?

This then is hope, a stroke, as we dressed,
Children spinning yarns below the stars,
Is the game, the game of let's pretend.

We would not bare, love out of touch.

I have a curled photograph
With waves that crest behind you
And your hair, golden veins,
Tangled in the sun that caves,
There you sit— my open secret,
Atlantic,
Frees my wrested heart
At the fortress—
Altar,
Dún Aengus.

In that place, that wanting place,
High— on the jagged edge
I captured you,
Your eyes were ocean,
Atlantis,
Never so deep, never so
Lost.