A Brighter Blue (Ballynahinch Postscript)

At home they’ve rowed the barley straw
they’ll aim to bale today;
so long now since
green May.

For darkening days
are here again,
more than mist,
not quite rain.

And there’s a spell
I’d wanted to persist –
though times push past
as the minutes, days and weeks insist.

But who lives in the real
world? So quicken it anew.
Return, replace, repair,
reconstitute, renew.

Turn up the sun!
And put the leaves back
on the trees.
Let river reins hang slack.

Wash the sky
a brighter blue.
Give back to swans
their downy retinue.

Add notes
to summer birds’ refrain.
Re-ignite the embers
of rhododendron, Golden Rain.

Resurrect, resuscitate.
Refresh and renovate.
Retrieve, regain and re-install,
translate

everything again. Restore
light moments to the day –
nothing can steal
this while away.

from The Company of Horses

By kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press