Colours
You'd be surprised
how black black is
when it's blue with rain.
And what do you do with the light
that comes in off the sea?
You might as well
forget what you look like
before you could ever begin
walking in it.
September
The greatest high-tide,
the happiest birds,
and the drunk on the road
who has been hurt in love.
The Prayer
for Noel Kilgallon
When Peggy was dying
her son leaned over to whisper
the Our Father into her ear.
She opened her eyes.
'Things must be bad, ' she said,
'that you've started praying.'
The Wandering Cat
If you find your cat
wandering far from home
don't lift him!
He'll weigh so heavy
he'll never leave your hands.
My House is Tiny
My house is tiny
and my sorrow
is the smallest
at this end of the country.
And yet the whole sea
at my back
can fit into
the most frightened
human mind.
Fire
in memory of Aidan
If you let the fire die
the soul scurries across the field
like a burning coal
off to another hearth.
Oh disloyal soul
separated from me
in my cold house!
____________________
Dermot Healy
What the Hammer
Gallery Books (Ireland)
1998
A marvelous Irish poet, and this small clutch of poems
may be my favorite of all his books. He catches where he
lives and works and eats and breathes, and who with. Healy
writes much longer poems as well, and as well, but I first
got smitten by these.
