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As

A squeak of light. Ocean air looking

to come inland, to test its influence on

the salty farms waking.

                                       Mist lifts.

The distance reappears; in an hour or so

someone will say crystal clear even though

there is no truth in it since even now

the ground is clouding ions and atoms.

The sun is up; day begins. Someone else says

dry as dust but this is outside Dublin

in summer and last night’s storm left

clay and water mixed together.

The afternoon is long and warm. The air

is sweet; the branch of one tree

angles to its own heavy fruit. Everywhere,

it is continuing: language crossing

the impossible with the proverbial—

until no one any longer wants a world where

as is not preferred to its absence.

Nor a fiddle fit, nor a whistle clean,

nor rain right again.

I am walking home. It is evening time.

A quarter moon rises in the whitebeams.

At the next turn houses appear one by one,

mine among them.

                                I walk past leaves,

grass, one bicycle. I put my key in the lock.

In a little while I will say safe as.

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