Details |
James Mills Poem
There came no blackbird to nest in your claw-hand,
Kevin, or fledge a brood strange and sun-shunned
as you in the cold, cooped, dirt and straw
strakes where you lay down in first abandon.
Awake at cock-crow, banty lullabied,
your wretched scratch of years in netted dark
appalled - appals.
Humanity denied is always local.
All you'd come to know was taken from you -
twice. They say you missed the feathery air
and turned your little ears to catch the coo
of pigeons on the roof. Can you despair?
The pity is, you never learned to play,
the mercy is, you never learned to pray.
Copyright © James Mills | Year Posted 2010
|
Details |
James Mills Poem
Winter brims
over bouldered ground
above Rostrevor.
Louring skies meld
blue lough to green forest.
Needling wind keens
through raftered bones,
once homes,
hewn from ancient granite.
Mourne claims her own,
over and over,
defeating generations.
Hasp and staple,
galvanised against the sleekit mist,
defend rude-lintelled doors.
Who comes?
Only ghosts of emigrants,
wraiths of mountainy men
whose quick selves
coaxed poor life
from pale, barren hills
above Rostrevor.
Copyright © James Mills | Year Posted 2010
|