亚色影库app

An open access publication of the 亚色影库app & Sciences
Fall 2011

Puff-Ball, Notebook, Firewood & Tongue Orchid

Author
Michael George Longley
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Michael Longley, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy since 2009, is one of Ireland's most prominent contemporary poets. His recent poetry collections include 鈥淭he Weather in Japan鈥 (2000), 鈥淪now Water鈥 (2004), and 鈥淐ollected Poems鈥 (2007). His newest collection, 鈥淎 Hundred Doors,鈥 was published by Jonathan Cape in 2011. 鈥淧uff-Ball,鈥 鈥淣otebook,鈥 鈥淔irewood,鈥 and 鈥淭ongue Orchid,鈥 漏 2011 by Michael Longley.

Puff-Ball

When we picked mushrooms at midnight
Among intersecting fairy rings,
You said moonlight had ripened them.

Later I found the moon鈥檚 image 鈥
The full moon鈥檚 鈥 a giant puff-ball
Taking shape as in a low cloud.

 

Notebook

Why did I never keep a notebook
That filled up with reed buntings
And blackcaps and chiffchaffs, their
Songs a subsong between the lines?

Early April. I am seventeen.
Under an overhanging whin brush
I have spotted linnets building.
A robin has laid her first egg.

 

Firewood

Out of the darkness and
Up the spiral staircase
I am carrying logs,
An armful every day,
Firewood for winter when
I shall not be here鈥搘ild
Fig perhaps鈥搘hite sap
For curing warts, scrotum-
Concealing leaves鈥揵lackthorn,
Chestnut鈥揻or all I know鈥
From the skinny waterfall,
Antique olive branches,
Sycamore, mulberry鈥
At the back of the wood pile
Underneath the casa
Logs that will never burn
Disintegrating year
By year, forgetfulness,
Woodlouse, scorpion.

 

Tongue Orchid

I pass the first dilapidated
Chestnut that holds in its leaves
The waterfall鈥檚 hurlygush,
When you call me back
Through tangles of paradise
Lily, bastard balm,
Nightshade, vetch to our very
First wasp-seducing
Tongue orchid, brownish red
Napkins neatly folded
As for a love-feast:
Why can鈥檛 we find a name
For purple candelabra
And dusk-stars like signals
To amorous fireflies, yet
So white in their thicket
They mark the path ending
And things coming to an end?