Time period: 1966-1972
Poet: Michael Longley
Permanent URL: http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/17m8g
Sources:
The dying fall, the death spasm,
Last words and catechism -
These are the ways we spend our breath,
The epitaphs we lie beneath -
Silent departures going with
The nose flute and the penis sheath.
Hill top and valley floor we sway between,
Our bodies sustained as by a hammock,
Our nakedness water stretched on a stone,
One with the shepherd's distant whistle,
The hawk lifted on its thremal, the hare
Asleep in its excrement like a child.
He will be welcome to
His place in the manger -
Anaesthetist and surgeon
Muffling the child's cries
And biting through the cord
That joins God to Mary.
A protective midwife -
She roots out with her horns
A sour cake from the straw
And, jaws grinding sideways,
Devours the afterbirth
Of the child of heaven
They will make a present
Of their empty purses -
Their perfected music
An interval between
The man with the scissors
And the man with the knife.
Slipped in by an old master
At the edge of the picture -
An idea in Mary's head,
A splash of colour -
Thistle-tweaker, theologian,
Easter-of-thorns.
A stunned cabin boy
Steering your ship to the bottom,
A flayed finger
Attached almost to the palm of her hand,
A tea leaf
Washed form the rim of her cup,
Unembraceable, indisposable,
My son or my daughter.
There are no landmarks round here,
Only immeasurable shifts
Of the snow, frozen eddies
To guide us home. Snow and ice
Turn us into Eskimos.
(Spoors vanishing between wing
Tips symmetrically printed)
We die walking in circles.
Art is in miniature,
Carved on what can't be eaten.
Cut with a cross, they are propped
Before the fire. It will take
Mug after mug of stewed tea,
Inches of butter to ease
Christ's sojourn in a broken
Oatmeal farl down your throat.
Her rush cross over the door
Brings Bridget the cowherd home,
Milk to the dandelion,
Bread to the doorstep, the sun's
Reflection under her foot
Like a stone skimmed on water.
My arm supporting your spine
I lay you out beneath me
Until it is your knuckles,
The small bones of foot and hand
Strewing a field where the plough
Swerves and my horses stumble.
The livestock in the yard first,
Then cattle in the field
But especially the bees
Shall watch our eyelids lower,
Petal and sod folding back
To make our beds lazy-beds.
Your hand in mine as you sleep
Makes my hand a bad neighbour
Who is moving through stable
And byre, or beside the well
Stooping to skim from your milk
The cream, the dew from your fields.
As though it were Christ's ankle
He stoops to soothe in his hand
The stone's underside, whose spine's
That ridge of first potatoes,
Whose face the duckweed spreading
On a perfect reflection.
A rickety chimney suggests
The diminutive stove,
Children perhaps, the pots
And pans adding up to love -
So much concentrated under
The low roof, the windows
Shuttered against snow and wind,
That you would be magnified
(If you were there) by the dark,
Wearing it like an apron
And revolving in your hands
As weather in a glass dome,
The blizzard, the day beyond
And - tiny, barely in focus -
Me disappearing out of view
On probably the only horse,
Cantering off to the right
To collect the week's groceries,
Or to be gone for good
Having drawn across my eyes
Like a curtain all that light
And the snow, my history
Stiffening with the tea towels
Hung outside the door to dry.