for Ethna Viney

Have the swallows returned,
Ethna, to your woodshed,
Their Thallabaun address,
Your household's annex?

Your hospitality
Every year makes room
For Saharan travellers
And for me from Belfast.

I sit at your table
While swallows fed their young
Penetrating darkness
Through the narrowest gap.

Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell – Lively account of a press baron

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A Lonely Man: How far should you go to write a great novel?

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The best Catholics in the world and the most oppressed people ever

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Elizabeth Bowen and four versions of an affair

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You who are ninety now
Have the swallow's genius
To find above a door
Soul-space, an inch of it.

Michael Longley’s most recent and 12th collection is The Candlelight Maker (Cape Poetry)