Tag Archives: Poetry

Mimosa

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When I smell mimosa
I remember the hill
With our school half way down
And the sea far below.
We ran there happily
At the start of each day.
And climbed home reluctant
In the afternoon heat.
At a bend in the hill
Where the sea fell from view,
An ancient mimosa
Hung over the wall.
The flowers touched the clouds
And its roots reached the sea,
Its scent fell around us
As we ran underneath.

When I smell mimosa
I remember the hill
With our school half way down
And the sea far below ……

March 1982

Duet for Lucy

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The girl who smells of roses plays her flute
Beside her window open on the night.
From shadows and disorder in her room,
The measured notes of Bach’s partitas flow
And fall about me in the dusk beneath.
From hidden branches in the copper-beech,
The day’s last blackbird sings in counterpoint.
How still the twilight when the blackbird calls!
How still the garden where her music falls!

Given to Lucy for her 18th birthday, 1 August 1989

Adult Shores

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Poem for Bridget

So softly in the summer night
Your fragile vessel has set sail,
Back through your Irish Infancy,
Bound for the Islands of the Blest.

We stand upon our adult shores
And through the curtain of our tears
Perceive at last, in all its grace,
Your loving presence in our lives.

Now comes the gathering of our years,
the harvest of our childhood days,
And in the barns of memory
We store the blessings
of your love.

For my brothers and sisters
In loving memory of our Mother 1903 – 1992