The island was being secretive
and chose that day to wear
its most opaque cloak of grey weather.
Your eyes were also in that mood
and chose not to be blue
but grey and misunderstood.
The finest globes of rain
strung your face like many necklaces.
And then the island chose
to show us all the symbols
of the predatory life:
hound hunted hare
who stopped and watched us
in our human hunt;
hawk and lark
rose up to buffet and clash wings
until we could not tell
which of these was hawk
and which was lark.
Below, wet to the bone,
our clothes and voices leaden
with the stark
inconsequential talk
of hawkvoice and houndvoice,
dumbness of beloved hare and lark,
we made our circles round each other.
Going away, we noticed at the sea-wall's edges
crowns of green plants in quiet splendour.
I had said, perhaps some god will send another real woman.
Some god heard. Some god did send her.
This previously unpublished poem by the late Michael Hartnett will appear in his Collected Poems published by Gallery Press which will be launched in Dublin on Thursday.
╔igse Michael Hartnett opened in Newcastle West, Co Limerick, yesterday and continues over the weekend