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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