A low sun leans across
the fields of County Meath
like thirty watts behind
a dirty blind. New year begins to breathe
new life into the ground.
The winter wheat begins to teethe.
The tarmac streams like precious ore
beside wrapped bales bright in the glare.
Crows shake like collies by a puddle
blooms of spray, and they declare —
a boy’s voice breaking in the throat
of morning — a prayer
that works to scour the slate
of unimaginable
hurt. We draw breath in the air —
its shapes are almost tangible —
and the breath and sweat of horses
makes a minor mist — beautiful.
And beautiful the light on water
as the age’s newly minted coin.
You’d be hard pressed from here
to tell a withered elm across the Boyne
from an ash that’s hibernating.
Past and present join
in the winter solstice.
The days will stretch and we survive
with losses, yes, and lessons too,
to reap the honey of the hive
of history. The yield of what is given
insists a choice — to live; to thrive.