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I’ve stopped trying to guess what fate holds in store,
So let us for a moment leave our lives poised like this
On a makeshift dancefloor outdoors in a Wicklow field
As the last vestige of summer daylight starts to fade.
On our journey here we often got hopelessly lost,
With an intermittent phone signal, while our host
Genially issued directions, waiting at his remote gate
Until we found him, like we have found each other.
Here are friends we know and new friends to make,
But our host lures us from his party into this field
Where he has laid down boards of the sturdiest timber,
Rigging up lights and speakers for later in the night
When he hopes to cajole other guests to dance here.
But for now it’s only us, happy to be his trail-blazers,
Laughing with him as he laughs and savours our joy
At dancing inelegantly in a darkening field amid hills,
Just miles from where my shy parents once kissed,
Eight decades ago, beneath trees in a hotel orchard,
So it feels that life has come full circle, after the complex
Twists endured before we could be here for one another,
Exultant in this moment, gladly making fools of ourselves
As we share with our dear friend this wondrous miracle
Of him watching us waltz with no need for lanterns or music,
Making our own magic by the light of the first evening star.
Dermot Bolger is a novelist, poet and playwright who in 2021 received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. The Dancers in a Wicklow Field is from his new collection, Other People’s Lives, published this month by New Island
So let us for a moment leave our lives poised like this
On a makeshift dancefloor outdoors in a Wicklow field
As the last vestige of summer daylight starts to fade.
On our journey here we often got hopelessly lost,
With an intermittent phone signal, while our host
Genially issued directions, waiting at his remote gate
Until we found him, like we have found each other.
Here are friends we know and new friends to make,
But our host lures us from his party into this field
Where he has laid down boards of the sturdiest timber,
Rigging up lights and speakers for later in the night
When he hopes to cajole other guests to dance here.
But for now it’s only us, happy to be his trail-blazers,
Laughing with him as he laughs and savours our joy
At dancing inelegantly in a darkening field amid hills,
Just miles from where my shy parents once kissed,
Eight decades ago, beneath trees in a hotel orchard,
So it feels that life has come full circle, after the complex
Twists endured before we could be here for one another,
Exultant in this moment, gladly making fools of ourselves
As we share with our dear friend this wondrous miracle
Of him watching us waltz with no need for lanterns or music,
Making our own magic by the light of the first evening star.
Dermot Bolger is a novelist, poet and playwright who in 2021 received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. The Dancers in a Wicklow Field is from his new collection, Other People’s Lives, published this month by New Island
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