A glorious thrush has been singing on the mount
in peak foliage ever since daybreak. It has sung
three sounds of increase, while fifty years
has passed for each, back to the duelling cathedrals,
back to the physic garden, to the remains
of a small kneeling weeper
by the unringed cross with hollow armpits.
There are five fireplaces, one above the other,
straight up the wall of the dim-remembered war.
None with his goodwill will be called
Henry, Edward, Richard, George, Francis,
but rather Murrough, Moriertagh, Turlough,
suchlike harsh names. Your way
of working out Easter will be an English surname
of a town, as Sutton, Chester, Trim,
Skryne, Cork, Kinsale, a colour as white,
lotus white, toga white, black, brown,
art or science, as smith, or carpenter,
office, as cooke, or butler.
Accurate as the multiseasonal rose,
or a kiss that is led up to the white
eyes of the dead, only inches from women’s
faces, only minutes, I walked along
the flint shaped island as along
the half mile of Easy Red, the first wave,
to find some graves with shears,
the gems of the household, sandglass
measuring the length of a sermon
and four-hour watches, Meles meles,
the complete skeleton of a dog in a sack,
the chestnut breast of the merganser.
That moment, when the sky was darker
than the water, a tiny probe had landed
after the furthest fall, on the frozen surface
of the only moon that has an atmosphere:
its heatshield worked perfectly, its three parachutes
opened as planned. And now it is like looking
with the Earth’s original eyes
at the primitive, hallowed earth of monastery.