It falls sharply out of the unlighted sky
and as the wind plays sport with it
I dance and sway to every gust
and watch brown rivers of it
stream down the bóithrín.
Then it slows and stops,
and with the sky lifting
the weight of black to blue,
my wandering roots rejoice,
the sun reclaims its glistening
in every uncertain drop trembling
on the tip of my flaming-red flowers,
its gleaming on now softly sheened leaves,
and this sighing of joy is the song of the earth.
* bóithrín: boreen: literally a small road, a country lane,
or narrow, often poorly paved, rural road in Ireland.
Poem by Anthony Wade
Anthony Wade, Irish, the only child of an Irish migrant single mother into England, an England-trained lawyer who worked in The Netherlands, published a first poem in 2018 after returning to Ireland, and since in poetry magazines across the British Isles, India and the US, in print and online. A Forward Prize nominee, he lives by the sea in East Cork, Ireland, only ten miles from where he spent summer vacations, and is an active member of the local Writers’ Group. Twitter@anthonywadepoet