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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: GRENNAN, EAMON Matches Found: 359 Grennan, Eamon Poet's Biography 359 poems available by this author 18/3/96 First Line: The mourning doves are back and each sunny afternoon Last Line: Only they know the name of and repeat over and over A FEW LAST LINES OF LAUNDRY Poem Text First Line: This ragged shining Subject(s): Laundry & Laundering A GENTLE ART Poem Text First Line: I've been learning how to light a fire Subject(s): Growth; Maturity ACCIDENTS First Line: Two in one day show the cold depths Last Line: Over the open field where the mines are lying AFTE A DEATH, A WALK IN THE COUNTRY First Line: No comfort for the saddness of calves, a whole field Last Line: How the air grows dark, darker, and the tree glows AFTER VIOLENCE Poem Text First Line: Stained-glass blue day. But smoke after a noise Subject(s): War AFTER-IMAGE First Line: Little glimmer of breasts. Someone %asleep behind them but only a moment Last Line: And blew every last trace, maybe, away AGNOSTIC SMOKE First Line: Open daisies in the grass, stars in the sky, that half-barrel Last Line: With leaf-light: countless its way of being, being like that ALL CLEAR First Line: Lunging against one another, the roof-edges Last Line: In which random fragments of our world %are for a mindless moment orderly and shining ALL SOULS' MORNING First Line: Rain splatting wet leaves; citrine light; the cat Last Line: Clattering to the kitchen for breakfast. The house quickens ALLI DYING Poem Text First Line: Shifts from one patch of shadow to another Subject(s): Cats; Death - Animals ALLI DYING First Line: Shifts from one patch of shadow to another Last Line: Saying it all, all over again ANGEL LOOKING AWAY First Line: Somewhere they are throwing Last Line: Not to lose its tongue ANOTHER DAY First Line: Morning still pitch-dark at seven, then light starts Last Line: The threads holding us together, everything in question Subject(s): Day; Life ANOTHER DEAD MOTH Poem Text First Line: On the kitchen tiles another dead moth. Subject(s): Moths ANTS First Line: A black one drags the faded remains of a moth Last Line: Adjust to one another, and without question ARMAGEDDON AUTUMN First Line: Wherever you walk Last Line: Though we've seen the light ART First Line: The whole chorus saying only one thing: look Last Line: A painter, old, is leaning slightly to the right or left ARTE POVERA Poem Text First Line: Like a poem by stevens (his latest manner) Subject(s): Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675); Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955); Headstones ARTE POVERA First Line: Like a poem by stevens (his latest manner) Last Line: And the sad moustache of wallace stevens ARTIST AT WORK First Line: On slow wings the marsh hawk is patrolling Last Line: And sure of itself only a minute ago in the sheltering grass AT A TURN IN THE ROAD First Line: Lapis iazuli, gold and cochineal: %you move through collapsed barns Last Line: The smell of what's cooking %when you come in again from the cold AT HOME IN WINTER Poem Text First Line: We sit across from one another Subject(s): Family Life; Relatives AT HOME IN WINTER First Line: We sit across from one another Last Line: Still steaming, and say %in no time now we'll sit and eat AT MY SISTER'S FLAT IN LONDON First Line: Decent the white flowers on the table Last Line: Keeping their hearts up, in every weather AT THE FALLS First Line: Although the lilacs after all that rain have all Last Line: We belong, saying nothing stays AUBADE First Line: Walking renvyle strand at sun-up, I see a gull that's Last Line: This day keeps coming on, we meet, we disappear BACK THEY SPUTTER Poem Text First Line: Back they sputter like the fires of love, the bees to their broken home Subject(s): Bees; Beekeeping BAT First Line: With no warning, and only the slightest whishing sound Last Line: With no warning, the window, open BEACH HAVEN First Line: Hiss and spread of a big wave on sand: salt water bubbling and Last Line: Of life-almost, beside the inhuman ocean they negotiate, almost our kind BEDROOM FLOWER First Line: It has blossomed overnight, this yellow iris Last Line: Kinked, and shivering, when my breath hits it BEHOLDING THE HARE Poem Text First Line: In the gale that's trying to take the roof off this small house Subject(s): Rabbits; Hares BEHOLDING THE HARE First Line: In the gale that's trying to take the roof off this small house Last Line: Self. Not, that is, one of us: soul-searching in our skin of reason BIRTHDAY WALK WITH FATHER First Line: Eighty-one you'd have been, given the fine day Last Line: Minding every concentrated precious step BITE First Line: Sometime in the night BONNARD'S REFLECTION First Line: His bedrooms reek of sex and melancholy Last Line: They know to the flowers on the dawn curtain BONNARD, DAYDREAMING First Line: Setting off without prologue or blessing Last Line: These whispers, pencil-thin, we live in BORDER CROSSING First Line: A twist in the season, a slight stir in the crabapple tree Last Line: By only fields of snow: no map, all the signposts blanked over BORDER INCIDENT First Line: Near dawn the clear sky is one Last Line: Shivering, the shock of bells BRANCHWATER: FLOWERING BRANCH First Line: You'd sail full tilt into my mornings Last Line: This %dead sea thirst; a clean pair of heels BRANCHWATER: FULL SAIL First Line: The city spread its blue room of toys Last Line: Butterflies, they skim the very %brink of water, courting disaster BREAKFAST ROOM First Line: The words have always stirred a sudden Last Line: Edging into shape, about to happen BREAKING POINTS First Line: They'll all break at some point Last Line: A pattern of solid purposes or the end of joy BREATHING First Line: Out in the overgrown garden. I'm bashing with a slash-hook Last Line: Get on with the day, and finish the job I'd started BRIDGE First Line: High up in the clear between the paling half-moon and the lake Last Line: In shadow, the white snags of his breath catching at branches BUBBLES First Line: We are -- not forever but the moment Last Line: Marking, as they go dark, our little time BUT SO First Line: Haze for days. Eye useless. Rowanberries darkening to brown. Birds Last Line: White of a dress and its bone-colored buttons, two arms stretching, %sleeveless, out of it BY THE HUDSON First Line: My dear, in the dead of winter Last Line: In which our life and death lie wintering BYE AND BYE First Line: Life isn't like that (certain and foursquare), he said, it slips by. Bye and Last Line: How the rain erases lake and mountain, claiming also the space between the %trees CAT SCAT Poem Text First Line: I am watching cleo listening, our cat Last Line: Does , or can, the cat Subject(s): Cats; Music & Musicians CAVALIER AND SMILING GIRL First Line: The old world geography Last Line: Making light of her life CAVE AND AWAKENING First Line: Stoneclad cold damp silence Last Line: And wickedness had never happened CAVE PAINTERS First Line: Holding only a handful of rushlight Last Line: That is now here - leave something upright %and bright behind thm in the dark CHANGE OF LIGHT IN PROVINCETOWN First Line: The light of day today says winter in its every wave Last Line: The body knows by heart: no words to it; soul music CIRCLINGS First Line: The little electric hum of her nerves Last Line: Through rings and widening rings %of light CIRCLNGS, SELS. CLOSER LOOK First Line: Simply that I'm sick of our wars and Last Line: Ooze, then the solid lie of things, then fire, %a further twist, begin again. Making do CLOUD First Line: There comes in middle life a moment Last Line: Bright life and shade, going over COLD MORNING Poem Text First Line: Through an accidental crack in the curtain Subject(s): Cold COLOUR SHOT First Line: Outside a south african shanty Last Line: Some savaging grace to flourish %in the open eye of heaven COMET First Line: Millions of miles above this road, this house Last Line: And every other light in the sky COMING DAY First Line: Up as usual in the dark COMMON THEME First Line: I know nothing Last Line: When one, as he did, takes his leave COMPASS READING (1) First Line: The solid weights and shapes of anchors Last Line: For all her satisfactions - %be appeased COMPASS READING (2) First Line: This morning the cat pawed up Last Line: Who will -- for all her satisfactions %not be appeased CONJUNCTIONS First Line: In the cold dome of the college observatory Last Line: In the brief blaze of my headlights %just like that - and still running Subject(s): Constellations CONVALESCENT First Line: Beyond the raw field of wounds another room Last Line: Her breath, and the music it's making, last COULD THIS BE IT? First Line: Transfiguration. Consider it from where you stand Last Line: You walk on into woodshade, flapping mosquitoes away COUPLE First Line: He is hearing out the crickets Last Line: Livid taste in their heart COUPLE ON PARK BENCH First Line: Back to back on a flat stone bench Last Line: Italian leather jerking like a live thing COWS First Line: They lay great heads on the green bank Last Line: We all walk across %one step at a time, and stand on CURRENT EVENTS First Line: Smoke and sudden flares. Day fleet as a scent Last Line: And the sea in the distance-all the sudden shiny grind of it CYCLE OF THIER LIVES First Line: All day, now that summer's come, the children Last Line: High reaches of the evening sky DATE First Line: On this last day of april Last Line: Through its own punctual force %and fine timing DAUGHTER AND DYING FISH First Line: Cast out on this stone pier, the dogfish are dying Last Line: A cheerful small voice %still singing DAUGHTER LYING AWAKE First Line: Absence takes me heartsick Last Line: I try to sleep DAUGHTER WAITING FOR SCHOOL BUS First Line: She balances the frosty morning Last Line: She returns it as music, dancing DAWN NEAR GURTEEN First Line: A hawk glides out of sight soon as I see it and Last Line: As I am, abroad footloose in a burst of morning DAY AND NIGHT First Line: When the shadow has eaten its way Last Line: Come on: there are faces at the night windows DAY'S WORK First Line: Bent over in the stone garden Last Line: To look at one another DECEMBER DUST First Line: See what the dust does when the sun-just risen for its last lap-raddles it Last Line: Strikes home the way the dust does-leaving him deaf, dumb, blind, bedazzled DESIGN First Line: Such neat designs the seed-sheaths have Last Line: And are gone in a blink, like the smell of burning DESIRE First Line: It's the way they can't understand the window Last Line: Electric fury to what's impossible, will not change DETAIL Poem Text Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Robins DIAGNOSIS First Line: To be touched like that Last Line: In the friendly %realm of shadows DINNER HOUR, DECEMBER First Line: In little dark-ringed frames of light Last Line: In water, haloes of hair, hands flying DIVING First Line: When the pale flame of the chaffinch Last Line: Of sliced peaches, each asking %whose mouth this is DOG Poem Text First Line: When I walk downhill, a stranger, into town Subject(s): Dogs DOG First Line: When I walk downhill, a stranger, into town Last Line: --like the creatures of habit and habitat we are-- %retreat to our secret lives, glancing away DRIVING NORTH, EARLY SPRING First Line: It looks as if nothing could be the same Last Line: Where a grove of ravaged aspens, growing the color of %luminous sand, stand shivering, coming into l DRIVING THROUGH FOG First Line: They are acrobats of indiscretion, her palm folded Last Line: Her lost face burning %up from underground: at this speed he cannot turn DRIVING THROUGH FOG First Line: Who are these Last Line: At this speed %he cannot turn EARLY LEARNING First Line: Shackled to its blackness Last Line: Snapping her two eyes shut %when the full light blinds her EGG First Line: Phantom violets out of season and green locust leaves and the off-key squawking Last Line: Of egg-white oiling across the frying-pan, the sunflower -yellow sun itself its centre ENCOUNTER Poem Text First Line: The lake that was caked ice is ice no more Last Line: Bands closing them) lie, like matching rings Subject(s): Hunting; Lakes; Hunters; Pools; Ponds ENCOUNTER First Line: The lake that was caked ice is ice no more Last Line: Closing top and bottom - lie like matching rings Subject(s): Hunting; Lakes END OF WINTER First Line: I spent the morning my father died Last Line: In every corner of the living room ENDANGERED SPECIES Poem Text First Line: Out the living-room window Subject(s): Children; Birth; Childhood; Child Birth; Midwifery ENDANGERED SPECIES First Line: Out the living-room window Last Line: The purple and scarlet parts %of a fuchsia bell. And her eyes are on fire ENOUGH First Line: First thing I saw near dawn on the road to the dunes this morning Last Line: Of his absence: the smell of him, his neat prints filling with sand EOS First Line: Silence. Then the clap of her hands Last Line: One small shadow sleeping in her arms EPIPHANY First Line: While you're gazing in the mirror all the names change Last Line: Matter-of-fact congregation of crows comes tumbling EROSION Poem Text First Line: What the sea does - coming, going - is the mole beneath the seeming solid earth Subject(s): Sea; Ocean EROSION First Line: What the sea does-coming, going-is mole beneath the Last Line: Loud clamourtongue, which the rock you stood on plunges into, %dumbing it EYE TROUBLE Poem Text First Line: Not clear exactly what to do now to clear the eye Subject(s): Eyes FACTS OF LIFE, BALLYMONEY First Line: I would like to let things be Last Line: Me looking out at the rain FAITH, HOPE, AND DANGER First Line: A small brown and gold moth Last Line: Dear distraction %from the main business FALL First Line: On a still morning, the shallow pond Last Line: Savour of honey in the empty mouth FALLING ASLEEP First Line: Always uncertain navigation: the odd glimmer Last Line: The filling for a fresh-made grave FAMILY SKETCHES First Line: Forty years from the living room window Last Line: Wide-eyed in the night FATHER IN FRONT OF A PICTURE First Line: Wermeer's girl leans he sleeping head Last Line: And with their own eyes find me, large as life FENCEPOSTS First Line: Inside each of these old fenceposts Last Line: To an order of sorts, showing us how to be at home %and useful in adversity, and weather it FEW LAST LINES OF LAUNDRY First Line: This ragged shining, %these embodied nothings Last Line: Washed and stretched %to the very limit, %almost touching one another FIREFLY First Line: On my last night in the country, a firefly Last Line: Of our specific music, and to the silence %that contains it as the dark contains the light FIRST OF MAY First Line: A blaze of magnolia blossoms Last Line: And your own struck heart at sea, astir FOR THE RECORD First Line: After six unsparing days of storm Last Line: Dry, a little on the cool side FORT First Line: It was a kind of igloo Last Line: We wanted to watch them live there FOUR DEER First Line: Four deer lift up their lovely heads to me Last Line: Under the clean magnesium burn of a first star FROM THE PLANE WINDOW First Line: Easy to see there's no living out there Last Line: Of crushed sea salt, and nothing to be forgiven FROM THE ROAD Poem Text First Line: What stops me is the big indifference Subject(s): Automobiles; Travel; Cars; Journeys; Trips FROM YOUR WINDOW First Line: A figuring of pigeons Last Line: Precarious, just in touch FUTILITY OF WISHING First Line: I have wanted to be a child again Last Line: Breaking the great silence GEESE, GOING First Line: Curious how the geese behave, slapping great light-catching Last Line: As a harbour would be-dun laoghaire years ago, or cobh- %with cries of departure? GENTLE ART First Line: I've been learning how to light a fire Last Line: Like a child grown up, growing strange Subject(s): Growth; Maturity GHOSTS First Line: One by one, in a fringe of frayed light Last Line: Slows down light, and shakes it out as rain GIFTS IN JANUARY First Line: The sound of one foot crunching dead grass on the way to the %lake Last Line: That 'quenches thirst, removes obstructions,' bitter in the %mouth Subject(s): January GLASSHOUSE AND PRAYER First Line: In from the torrents of belfast rain Last Line: A scented common tongue to one another GLIMPSES First Line: His morning-after in the bathroom Last Line: His own breath enter the world %coming up to me HAPPENING First Line: It almost always happens by accident, never when you're tense Last Line: Shaking where the hawk went keen and headlong into it HEADLINES First Line: I knock on the tree. It opens into Last Line: Back to her window, how could it be? HEIRLOOM First Line: Among a few small objects I've taken from my mother's house Last Line: My own left shoulder, keeping at bay and safe the darker shades HER POEMS First Line: From behind the blank door of the room Last Line: Breathing: the page speaks back to her Subject(s): Poetry And Poets; Women HIEROGLYPHIC Poem Text First Line: Bent over his time-polished pitchfork Subject(s): Sycamore Trees; Time HIEROGLYPHIC First Line: Mid-february. Our first redwing blackbird Last Line: Clear, and know a whole civilization lies %sleeping beneath their feet HIEROGLYPHIC First Line: Bent over his time-polished pitchfork, tommy %joyce-who's turning hay Last Line: His incendiary yellow-ringed eye running rings out %to the rings of saturn HOMELIGHT First Line: Six or so this january morning Last Line: At you framed there, there where we live %in this brief-lit,but lit, ring of winter HORSES First Line: Although they seldom muscled above me Last Line: How to be, increasingly, in the world HOUSE First Line: Near the junction of two small roads Last Line: Raving firelights when the sun goes under HOUSE WORK First Line: Risking a little change. Next thing you're up to your knees in mud Last Line: Air is blue ice and rides in on light shoulders, brightening the place HOUSEPLANTS IN WINTER Poem Text First Line: Their survival seems an open question Subject(s): Plants; Planting; Planters HOUSEPLANTS IN WINTER First Line: Their survival seems open to question Last Line: Visitations of winter light that cast our %impeccable shadows on your razed page HOWTH, JANUARY 1991 First Line: Out here on this tip of the peninsula Last Line: Creeping in silence before the breeze I LIE AWAKE EACH MORNING WATCHING LIGHT First Line: Grow inch by inch in the bedroom and beyond the window Last Line: Fishing boat take to the open sea, one lamp blazing at mast top IN FLIGHT First Line: If you speak above a whisper, the dogs will bark, discovering Last Line: You make your mind up, searching for the right map IN LATE FEBRUARY First Line: As when the siege of some great city lifts Last Line: But for its persistent, pursue-me! Music IN THE DUNES First Line: When you close your eyes in such a silence, death Last Line: And that dry whisper as the sand in sleep keeps shifting Subject(s): Death; Dunes; Sleep IN THE KNOWN WORLD Poem Text First Line: Did the heron I saw swimming in the small pond by the highway Subject(s): Animals; Nature IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON First Line: These dutchmen are in certain touch Last Line: In the cold, making no bones of it IN WINTER: THREE WOMEN First Line: One meets you on the run Last Line: For us to breathe in %warmly, of light, of shade INCIDENT Poem Text First Line: Mid-october, massachusetts. We drive Subject(s): Lobsters; Death; Food & Eating; Dead, The INCIDENT First Line: Mid-october, massachusetts. We drive Last Line: And off, like a flash, across the rueful stars INVENTORY First Line: To lay claim to something even %this old half-barrel with its Last Line: Lie down under the hand of light %itself and are settled by it ITINERARY First Line: Feel a passion for invisibility, be a fly on the wall Last Line: Must travel at the speed of light, not looking back JAMES WRIGHT, 1927-1980 First Line: It is the supple conjunction of two Last Line: You step away %to the heart of the light JEWEL BOX Poem Text First Line: Your jewel box of white balsa strips Subject(s): Jewelry; Marital Love JEWEL BOX First Line: Your jewel box of white balsa strips Last Line: Out to the fogbound street, you light my way JOURNEY First Line: Get the word and go Last Line: This firstborn voice to say %the word, any word, and let her go KILLING THE BEES First Line: They'd been there for years, secreted in the ceiling Subject(s): Bees; Insects; Beekeeping; Bugs KITCHEN VISION First Line: Here in the kitchen, making breakfast Last Line: That's just starting to sing, %its hot breath steaming LAKE, EARLY MORNING First Line: Necks stretched, three ducks come winging: you hear Last Line: And bound for salt, homecoming, its own sweet loss LAPWINGS IN JANUARY First Line: The strand is winter skin and bone, the blown sand Last Line: Till they catch light, backs a gleaming coppery green LAUNDROMAT First Line: In the dryer, shaken sleepers Last Line: In a plastic yellow basket %barred as any cage LEASH First Line: Here on a short leash, I study in silence Last Line: And so on as long as I listen LEAVING THE GARDEN Poem Text First Line: Time to remember again Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Fathers LEAVING THE GARDEN First Line: Time to remember again Last Line: What the days do, coming and going LESSON First Line: The needles he's using Last Line: Her eyes from the task, and the silent %strict sisters do not lift theirs LEVITATIONS First Line: Airborne as they are, his lovers are solid as we are Last Line: To stay in the one place, still as we are, and go on holding LIBERAL LEARNING First Line: She begins by naming the animals Last Line: Solid shadow standing on %a branch of sunlight in her own %growinng, ungatherable world LIFE First Line: All the way home, salmon follow their noses Last Line: That last lost succulence of theirs with your fork LIZARDS IN SARDINIA First Line: I miss our lizards. The one who watched us Last Line: Leaves against the window, our new world %steadying around us, its weather settled LOVE BITES First Line: As if they'd been walking in their sleep Last Line: As if we were creatures of hope after all LUNCH-BREAK ON THE EDGE OF TOWN First Line: Overhead, a mile up from where we share Last Line: Gone, then drive in silence past the first houses LYING LOW First Line: The dead rabbit's Last Line: Of his ribs, the radiant %open house of his heart MAKESENSE Poem Text First Line: Vermont, he says, seen from an eminence, MAN MAKING THE BED First Line: Psalm after psalm into a dead sea of silence: they invent Last Line: Or the future with red eyes whispering to rouse them MARCH First Line: Spare, stripped down, glows Last Line: And all its shadows break to shine MARGINAL First Line: I feel I've been carrying my heart around Last Line: Sweet water, taking the tongue out of my head MARTHA'S VINEYARD IN OCTOBER First Line: Noisy all morning under downpouring rain Last Line: The ground give way, that felt solid where they stood MEMENTO Poem Text First Line: Scattered through the ragtaggle underbrush starting to show green shoots Subject(s): Time MEN ROOFING; FOR SEAMUS HEANEY First Line: Bright burnished day, they are laying fresh roof down Last Line: Heart of their mystery; and they ply, they intercede MINGLED YARN First Line: Cut to the bone, they kiss at the door. Lips Last Line: Out to catch a splash, a splash of it, this light MOMENT Poem Text First Line: Two small white butterflies settle Last Line: In tune with things, staining the day Subject(s): Butterflies; Insects; Bugs MOMENT First Line: Two small white butterflies settle Last Line: In tune with things, staining the day Subject(s): Butterflies; Insects MORNING, LOOKING OUT First Line: Across the canal a woman in grey leans out Last Line: Over the bleached green water MORNING: THE TWENTY-SECOND OF MARCH First Line: All the green things in the house Last Line: To the nameless radiant vacancy at the window, %this stillness in which we go on happening MOTHER AND CHILD First Line: She forms a warm nest for him Last Line: Slowly, like loving hands MOVING First Line: She is moving Last Line: And then %set out to find her MUSE, MAYBE First Line: You are never at home with her Last Line: You've made such promises before MUSHROOM-PICKING IN THE OLD WORLD First Line: Remember the soft morning: moist, pulpy, odorous Last Line: Your mother will string them, big beads, to wrinkle dry MUSICAL INTERLUDE First Line: Cragflower. Music of the sea. %the flower still standing Last Line: Winged thing singing in the thick of hedges NATURE OF AMERICA First Line: Things are getting out of hand. Mornings Last Line: In a dervish of roots, leaves, abandoned blossom NAVIGATION First Line: You navigate as you can each day's agitation Last Line: Which once we took our homebound bearings by NEIGHBOUR First Line: Braces over one shoulder; sweat-stained tweed cap Last Line: I get of him lead me where the word soul might seem %second nature. Things adding up. Nothing left o NEW HAMPSHIRE PASTORAL First Line: Tidal the light and shade that floods and ebbs from the wide Last Line: At the sight: this wingless thing down here squinting up at them Subject(s): New Hampshire NIGHT Poem Text Subject(s): Night; Bedtime NIGHT BY THE HARBOR First Line: Orion overhead and the coal-black water Last Line: And at the top speed, sweeping the solid land away NIGHT DRIVING IN THE DESERT First Line: Move fluent as water Last Line: My heart is beating wildly, wildly for days NIGHT FIGURE First Line: She hovers over the ache of thresholds: that brass Last Line: Of wardrobes, down the sheer drop of sleep NIGHT OF KATE'S BIRTHDAY First Line: What I heard the other night zipping an electric hem on the long Last Line: Dark eyes which I can still see, when I meet you off trains, %lighting on me NIGHT VISITOR First Line: Was it my earlier kindness - calling her NIGHT-PIECE First Line: What's that scratching Last Line: In sleep. Night creeps by. Subject(s): Montague, John (b. 1929); Night; Sleep; Bedtime OASIS First Line: To enter this cool space Last Line: The one good word ON A CAPE MAY WARBLER WHO FLEW AGAINS MY WINDOW First Line: She's stopped in her southern tracks Last Line: Ghosts come nest in my branches ON A CAPE MAY WARBLER WHO FLEW AGAINST MY WINDOW Poem Text First Line: She's stopped in her southern tracks Last Line: Ghosts come nest in my branches Subject(s): Birds; Death – Animals; Children; Burial; Parents ON FIRE First Line: How hungrily the wood, grown light with weathering Last Line: Of matter, catching fire at the fire we make of our lives ONA 3-1/2 OZ. LESSER YELLOWLEGS, DEPARTED BOSTON AUGUST 28 First Line: Little brother, would I could Last Line: The sea-grapes plump and darken ONE MORNING Poem Text Recitation First Line: Looking for distinctive stones, I found the dead otter ONE MORNING First Line: Looking for distinctive stones, I found the dead otter Last Line: All seemed at peace. I could feel the sun coming off the water ONE MORNING DURING THE ELECTIONS First Line: In the washed lucidity of the hill Last Line: Out of the clouds, stand on the water, on the stony hills OUT THERE First Line: Coming through the iron gate Last Line: The restless world he's been given %step by self-possessing step, %negotiating the cold season OUTING First Line: Granted the atlantic between us, I can only imagine Last Line: Lifts and settles, and lifts, and settles PAPYRUS Poem Text First Line: Acorn-brown, the girl's new nipples Subject(s): Growth; Women PAPYRUS First Line: Acorn-brown, the girl's new nipples Last Line: Shrouded in the daylight he keeps breaking Subject(s): Growth; Women PASSING COLD SPRING STATION First Line: What you see is there's no second time Last Line: You, going, to leave them go PATIENCE IN RENVYLE First Line: These brown cows colour the path Last Line: Cuts between them like a knife PAUSE First Line: The weird containing stillness of the neighbourhood Last Line: Of your child's winter clothes on the hall floor PHOENIX ME THIS BY MOONFALL First Line: As if the season were a phoenix nest heavy with gums and spices, all things Last Line: In the raw: free-falling through cloudcaps; only one long night flight ahead of %you PIECES OF KATE First Line: Her whole body flowing Last Line: Sing, love, sing your heart out! PLACE First Line: First morning back, there's a faint cap of cloud Last Line: And the sunny morning be sheer heaven to him POEM PARTLY STOLEN FROM MONTALE First Line: Insomnia, you say, is good for me. Unloved by sleep, I fly wide-eyed Last Line: Out there the world, its wildflash mirages. The room sick with waiting PORRIDGE First Line: While you're cooking breakfast Last Line: To join you, my head swimming POTATOES First Line: Neglected for days, for weeks Last Line: Have started to turn, growing shorter Subject(s): Food Habits; Potatoes PROVINCETOWN SURPRISE First Line: There are mornings you feel moght never die Last Line: On wings, uptilted, of meerschaum and frittered light PUTTING ON RINGS First Line: My mother looking at her hands Last Line: The ring is the very temperature %your blood is Subject(s): Hands; Jewelry And Jewelers RAEBURN'S SKATER First Line: I want his delicate balance, his Last Line: The fixed stars hold him fast RAKING First Line: There is this curious joy cleaning fallen leaves from the grass Last Line: Inside this silence where I tidy things, dreamily, towards sleep READING BECKETT IN OCTOBER Poem Text First Line: Great blaze the trees put on: maple, dogwood, birch, oak, beech, Subject(s): Beckett, Samuel (1906-1989) RENVYLE WALK AFTER RAIN First Line: Ditches brimming, spilling into the road, water Last Line: Its towntonn mouth-music drowning everything REPORT FROM THE FRONT First Line: Roused from that sweet domestic sleep Last Line: When the crazy door bangs on broken hinges REPORTS FROM THE FRONT First Line: The cows spread slow unreadable ideograms RESOLUTION Poem Text First Line: Since life is like a burning house, what can he make Subject(s): Life RIGHTS First Line: He has every right to name her Last Line: She bows and balances and spins on ROBIN First Line: What is there to say about the small bird Last Line: Flying out to meet you as you go in ROCK BOTTOM Poem Text First Line: So this is what it comes down to in the end: earth and sand ROCK BOTTOM First Line: So this is what it comes down to the end: earth and sand Last Line: To how things were once, but to go on ending and ending here ROOM AND SUN First Line: When the sun comes directly in this window ROUGH ART First Line: An old rosebush you planted Last Line: The whole neighborhood, drifting away SEA DOG First Line: The sea has scrubbed him clean SETTING OFF First Line: The houses bone white, fire ochre, aquamarine Last Line: Of a future trembling between hemlock needles SHARD Poem Text First Line: After the ravages that took the bees by storm Variant Title(s): Last Drop Subject(s): Bees; Honey; Insects; Beekeeping; Bugs SHED First Line: You wouldn't know it had been there at all, ever Last Line: The metal ghost of the roof, springing into the dark SHOCK WAVES First Line: Sunflower seeds, stone walls, eyes in hiding, phantasmagoria Last Line: With longing, the hard clear stars saying the way Subject(s): Waves SHORT STORY OF A LITTLE DEATH First Line: The robin lay on its back by the ditch. I took it up. It opened its eyes, moved Last Line: Of the ash tree, flickering into the fuchsia hedge. Invisible still, the blackbird %goes on singing SIGNIFIERS First Line: Although snow has wrapped the house in a quicklime bandage Last Line: A gleam of something: not consolation exactly, but still mattering? SIGNING SINGING First Line: Flashing hands, face, eyes, arms, all the upper body Last Line: With a 'p' before it, so something there is that sings, you see Subject(s): Hands; Language; Singing And Singers SIGNLAND Poem Text First Line: Cicadas tear the tear to flitters Subject(s): Life; Death; Dead, The SITTING IN A FIELD ON A WINDY DAY Poem Text First Line: Surge of leaves; the grass leanng all one way Subject(s): Fields; Wind; Pastures; Meadows; Leas SITTING IN A FIELD ON A WINDY DAY First Line: Surge of leaves; the grass leaning all one way Last Line: To what contains them. The low sun %lying on the horizon %like a great golden egg of light SIX O'CLOCK First Line: Steamy mushroom weather. Under the white pines Last Line: To peer into - exactly what? The hour that's in it SKUNK First Line: Night brims with his bittersweet Last Line: Through the dark beyond the bedroom window SMALL MERCIES First Line: From where I stand I can see the chipmunk Last Line: Turning and %touching and whispering before they go SOMETHING AFTER ALL First Line: Sitting in what was my father's Last Line: If I can believe my eyes, like new leaves SOMEWHERE IN IRELAND First Line: They say the turf is moving, whole bags Last Line: Glittering among the puzzled gulls SONG Poem Text First Line: At her junior high school graduation, Subject(s): Singing & Singers; Songs SONS First Line: My son, fifteen, is playing soccer Last Line: Their cinnamon, coriander, stone mint SOUL MUSIC: THE DERRY AIR First Line: A strong drink, hundred-year-old %snapps Last Line: Their unquestioning green leaves seem %alive with expectation SOURCE First Line: A narrow passage Last Line: And in the distance %flute-voiced water SPEECH First Line: Like learning a strange tongue Last Line: In the hushed, unruffled %cradle of you beak SPRING FEVER First Line: As though these fresh leaves were pressing Last Line: Again with sweetness and dread Subject(s): Spring START OF MARCH, CONNEMARA Poem Text First Line: The wind colder even than march in maine, though the same sea Last Line: Making their mark against green gape-water, then gone Subject(s): Absence; Connemara, Ireland; Separation; Isolation START OF MARCH, CONNEMARA First Line: The wind colder even than march in maine, though the same sea Last Line: Making their mark an instant against green gape-water, then gone Subject(s): Absence; Connemara, Ireland STATION First Line: We are saying goodbye Last Line: And fall away again %before we're even able to name them STATUE First Line: This boy is on the verge of walking Last Line: Point of being born again, walking away STAYING IN BED First Line: We lay all morning talking. The window Last Line: Away each other's past, digesting hard facts STILL LIFE WITH BUTTERFLIES, BREAKERS, ATLANTIC CITY Poem Text First Line: Noon monarchs. Their crooked descents and ascensions Subject(s): Butterflies STILL LIFE WITH WASP NEST AND BIRCHES First Line: In locust branches beyond your window Last Line: And all the border bittersweets of hallucination Subject(s): Nature STONE FLIGHT First Line: A piece of broken stone, granular granite, a constellation Last Line: In the dust at a verge of meadowgrass and wild carrot Subject(s): Erotic Love; Stones STOP First Line: We slowed and pulled over beside the body Last Line: And filling her hands for me STREAK OF LIGHT Poem Text First Line: After a party to celebrate the mid-term break Subject(s): Youth; Admiration STREAK OF LIGHT First Line: After a party to celebrate the mid-term break Last Line: After that last glimmer is gone from my eye STUFFED BIRDS First Line: They abide my tactless curiousity Last Line: Pulses and will not stay SUCH A STATE First Line: Sheep in their sooty masks, a cake of dried blood Last Line: Extended, flapping like bats, their cracked heads %bald, blank eyes, gumfuls of broken teeth SUMMER EVENING Poem Text First Line: A spear of zinc light wounds stone and water, Subject(s): Nature SUMMER EVENING First Line: A spear of zinc light wounds stone and water Last Line: Like zones of a map thrown on smouldering embers SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH BINOCULARS First Line: Balmy as summer. It won't last Last Line: Winking on drenched wellingtons SUNSHINE, SALVATION, DRYING SHIRT First Line: Between the big window nd the lake's blind flashes Last Line: Of the angelus bell beats round and round the valley SURVIVOR First Line: Like another heart against your hand, the bee you've captured in your hankie Last Line: As the beat of another heart tapping its morse against your hand would SWAN IN WINTER First Line: There is this enormous white sleep Last Line: Vanishing, a dead yellow locust SWIFTS OVER DUBLIN First Line: Stop, look up, and welcome these artful Last Line: Their keen, seasonal dominion TAKING MY SON TO SCHOOL Poem Text First Line: His first day. Waiting, he plays Subject(s): Education; Schools; Students TAKING MY SON TO SCHOOL First Line: His first day. Waiting, he plays Last Line: Naked and shining, shining %in the empty garden Subject(s): Education; Schools THAT OCEAN First Line: To love the scrubbed exactitudes Last Line: Beneath a black umbrella, behind %a bright bead curtain of rain THE CAVE PAINTERS Poem Text First Line: Holding only a handful of rushlight Subject(s): Paintings & Painters; Primative Man THE COMING DAY Poem Text First Line: Up as usual in the dark Subject(s): Family Life; Relatives THE LIFE SO SHORT Poem Text First Line: The wind colder even than march in maine, though the same sea Subject(s): Life; Transience; Mortality; Birds THEM AND US First Line: In the hanging gardens of fuchsia and goldenrod Last Line: Towards the hour appointed, and away from it THERE First Line: All his life, we're told, chardin struggled to overcome his lack of natural Last Line: Only you look again, stretch your hand, dip the bristles, risk again the failing stroke THESE NORTHERN FIELDS AT DUSK First Line: You'd learn to listen to the big gate Last Line: In another light, and being seen by it THROUGH GLASS First Line: The figure I see stepping up from the lake Last Line: Where these words must stop and vainly circle TO GRASP THE NETTLE First Line: Empty your hands. Shake off even the sweat Last Line: Will not be steady and the thing will sting you TOTEM Poem Text Subject(s): Autumn; Fall TOTEM First Line: All souls' over, the roast seeds eaten, I set Last Line: On top of the wooden post: it is that empty space TOWARDS DUSK THE PORCUPINE First Line: Startled to see me Subject(s): Porcupines TOWER HOUSE, BALLYMONEY, 1978 First Line: It is spring and he brings me wildflowers Last Line: And around that small family, safe for the night TRAVELLER First Line: He's ten, travelling alone for the first time Last Line: In the lull between storms, the brief %peace between battles, no land in sight TREES AFTER SNOW First Line: In white the trees are languishing Last Line: Are wonderful, midsummer, with birds TRIP First Line: Unable to change our bodies Last Line: Just before it's opened, tasing salt TULLY HIGH ROAD, DUSK First Line: A scream breaks the stillness %of the road I walk home on Last Line: Has wings, you catch it, blind %and glimmering as it flies TWO CLIMBING First Line: After the blackface sheep, almond coats daubed Last Line: Watching the split skull - colour of crushed almond %of washed-out barley muslin - shine TWO FOR THE ROAD: 1. SMOKE First Line: As if all the clocks in the house Last Line: For the moment in the whole sky TWO FOR THE ROAD: 2. SHAPES First Line: You were reading of a people Last Line: From which we take %our hands back, burning TWO GATHERING First Line: After supper, the sun sinking fast, kate and I Last Line: Her words, unanswered, %hanging between us as we turn to go TWO PHOTOGRAPHS: 1 First Line: A stretched array of tibetan prayer flages Last Line: Until all their heart-drawn tantric syllables %are taken by the wind, in brilliant tatters TWO PHOTOGRAPHS: 2 First Line: Outside a south african shanty, a line of laundry Last Line: In another fashion, its bright upright smoke %sailing on air in the open eye of heaven TWO SNAPSHOTS FOR THE INNER EYE Poem Text First Line: Glassed in all day like this I keep towelling the windows dry - UNFINISHED First Line: The house next door but one to this one Last Line: How the hard thing that happened, happened UNNATURAL ACT First Line: Sudden white gape UNTITLED Poem Text First Line: Now the buried stones have risen and would almost talk Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Landscape UNTITLED Poem Text First Line: When that great conflagration had finished with us, I sat in the silence of rocks Subject(s): Birds; Landscape UP AGAINST IT Poem Text First Line: As though these fresh leaves were pressing Last Line: Fury to what’s impossible, feeling the sting in it Subject(s): Bees UPHILL HOME First Line: Two old men under the blazing VESPERS First Line: Back they flash at dusk Last Line: Where is it? Where is it? VESPERS: 1 First Line: At dusk, things take on a light-life Last Line: Cat got your tongue? VESPERS: 2 First Line: Untutored, the young chaffinch Last Line: Calling: kuei ch'u. Sick for home VESPERS: 3 First Line: The body carries on to its own Last Line: In a surf of rain. At eye level again VESPERS: 4 First Line: Time for a little dictation. Hopkins Last Line: Surge of insurge, your boot flatters it VIEW FROM RENVYLE First Line: Low cloud exactly sliced. %ridge of mweelrea Last Line: The harbor called %beyond question, this is it VISITATION Poem Text First Line: Last night you called me out to the december dark Subject(s): Geese VISITING MOUNT JEROME First Line: After I'd touched down last summer on my parents' grave Last Line: The outside world, her warm small hand fiercely holding VISITORS Poem Text Subject(s): Geese VOICES First Line: We live in shadows and the shadows live Last Line: To make a listener of me WAITING ROOM First Line: A fox has been spotted in the back field Last Line: It's only a matter of time, but what will happen? WALK, NIGHT FALLING, MEMORY OF MY FATHER First Line: Downhill into town Last Line: Flinging %themselves at this impossible light WALKING FALL First Line: When we enter the woods off route 17 Last Line: Ahead of you through silence, a female %pheasant, unruffled,walking home alone WALKING HOME AS THE RAIN DRAWS OFF First Line: Bright pools of crowded light Last Line: Is glazed at abrupt intervals %where the wet light strikes it WALKING TO WORK First Line: The trees along college avenue stand Last Line: Like any native, under the bearing trees WAS First Line: To slow things down. To remember exactly. What a tongue was Last Line: Not your case, certain with each slow motion that what was just was WATCH Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Watching it closely, respecting its mystery, Subject(s): Bees; Sycamore Trees; Conduct Of Life; Beekeeping WEATHER First Line: After three or four days of persistent rain Last Line: Its own sure silence round your lives WET MORNING, CLAREVILLE ROAD First Line: Under morning greys of rain the roses Last Line: And, like a quick kiss, vanishes WHAT DOESN'T HAPPEN First Line: Would you have raised your head and opened your eyes Last Line: Running in place as usual, trying to see more deeply in WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE TRACKS IN THE DUNES First Line: That here the raccoon, accelerating downhill, braked Last Line: As is always is -- trying to keep a right grip on things WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO First Line: From time to time when I'm running in the fall morning-the sky Last Line: The dead still-till dark wings open wide and rise, cutting off the light WHAT REMAINS First Line: Silken limegreen wings of two luna moths Last Line: And all their covered, incandescent bones Variant Title(s): Leftover WHEN LETTERS ARRIVE First Line: As if it were a bee's dream of heaven the pulpy rhododendron Last Line: The thrush, saying and unsaying itself, could break your heart WHISTLING IN THE DARK First Line: The day of her waking and last exposure, I saw Last Line: Trying to fix this minute among its poor relations WHITE WATER Poem Text First Line: Yes, the heart aches, but you know or think you know it could be WIND CHIMES First Line: Thunderhead. Thunderhead. %first a hush in which Last Line: Your mouth. Spell %'branks'. Close slowly now WINDOWGRAVE First Line: The dead bee lies on the window ledge, a relic Last Line: That harden the heart, getting its appetite back WING ROAD First Line: Amazing, how the young man who empties Last Line: Covening in branches, will flash and haggle WINN'S BLACKBIRD First Line: Drawn out of the oven's dark Last Line: Your bird, imagine, takes flight WINTER First Line: Who, when they are all gone, will Last Line: Shivering and praying in the flayed hedges WINTER BEES First Line: It's the diligence of bees that startles me: here on this chill Last Line: Whatever turbulence the weather sends, bring back something WINTER MORNING, TWELVE NOON First Line: Light snags in january branches. On the sunstark Last Line: Eager faces up like urns, like fresh leaves, to those %slow crystals of cold, those flakes of light WITH YOUNGEST DAUGHTER AT PARENTS' GRAVE First Line: No candles, paper boats, nor any of the white acts of mourning Last Line: And clumped grass, entering the aftermath as we two enter %the other world, your warm small hand fie WOMAN AT LIT WINDOW Poem Text First Line: Perhaps if she stood for an hour like that Subject(s): Paintings & Painters; Models WOMAN AT LIT WINDOW First Line: Perhaps if she stood for an hour like that Last Line: With their pulse, ungovernable, of light WOMAN HOLDING A BALANCE First Line: Almost invisible, a minute affair Last Line: The bright fleshed fingers %of her left hand - slightly %flexed - depend WOMAN SLEEPING IN THE TRAIN First Line: Her lips remind me of the mouth bernini gave Last Line: Having to take it and each other in as we look away WOMAN WITH PEARL NECKLACE First Line: Since he painted her, she will always be putting this pearl necklace on Last Line: But that wall of all colours making white, which the painter faces WOMEN GOING First Line: You know the ordinary ways they go Last Line: She's left, and left him in WOODCHUCK First Line: A low brown ghost Last Line: Coil of his homeland fattening round him WOODEN BARREL, BLUE FEZ Poem Text First Line: On the half-barrel which is my bird feeder I can find Subject(s): Nature WOODEN BARREL, BLUE FEZ First Line: On the half-barrel that's my bird feeder I can find Last Line: Turn, I think, to wait for it to begin again to end WORDS First Line: They itch to be in touch WORLD First Line: Hello, blank page and place of risk Last Line: Coming in on time, a dry night-heart, singing Y2K Poem Text First Line: Mutation of bells. Chapels vanishing in fog Subject(s): World Trade Center Tragedy (9/11/2001); New York City - Terrorist Attack, 9/11 Y2K First Line: Mutation of bells. Chapels vanishing in fog Last Line: Long time night, the usual. So forth and so on Subject(s): World Trade Center Tragedy (9/11/2001) YELLOWTHROAT IN OCTOBER First Line: From my small room at the top of the house Last Line: Will be, I am - if only for the moment %music to the bone |
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