Easter Notes

Apple blossoms, rows of short newly born trees
cheering blades of light green in the fields
under the swollen violet dark of a storm.

We were running away from volleys of Atlantic blue hail,
the burning cold of icy stings shot into the bay
in blinding swarms with edges of sunlight.

On Mount Etna a shower of sleet and rain,
you sensed olive trees looking up with marvel from the plain,
our gaze on our feet, on blotches of black lava and snow.

Achill Island, a squall shovelled on the beach,
white and yellow flashes from the horizon of the sea,
even a glance in the wind was more than you could resist.

Clouds transiting, clouds hovering with the vast
grip of light, the enduring low sun of the evening
on the cliff of Bundoran, clouds descending,

lightening the dark bright walls of the houses,
the breeze piercing the wool of our sweaters
on streets and fields quietened by the huge ocean,

you sensed delight in words like transition and truce,
Gods at war folding their arms and waiting,
fierce stares becoming veins of smiles in the sky

and birds’ twitters on walls and corners,
busy threads of songs not all scared
by the luminous thundering tension in the air.