The Druid's Corner

One misty night on the road
to Wentzville, a doe cut across
the headlights and vanished
kicking gravel chips
from the edge of the woods,
her provoking rump
giving the last flash.

I used to be that woman,
luring men to their deaths,
or so they liked to think,
when each carried his death
like a second heart
already within him.

Copyright © Drucilla Wall 2011

That was the year we strode the prom
between the rail line and the Slaney River,
turning under the bridge to climb back
to the rush of traffic on the road to town.

Massed in the field that was your boyhood
soccer pitch, wild orchids towered
over us, swaying above the ferns and grasses,
their purple blooms drifting like faces
brightened in the sunlit mist, witness
to the river, passing trains, the lone blue heron,
horses on the island, and our rain-jacketed selves
complaining of the weather and wondering
how to solve this or that, here or there.

One time we saw a double rainbow arc
the river on the tide’s retreat to Wexford.
From a chestnut tree a nightingale pierced
the summer night with its lament,
and we knew none of our cynical friends
would believe such walks real or even possible.

Progress pocked the town.
Some nights a smell of burning threaded
all along the streets like a builder’s promise.
Yellow machines scraped the ground raw
of rubble behind the market square
where the old hotel once stood.
Across the street a new Dunnes Stores
stretched tall as the cathedral,
and The Irish Times announced to all
that orchids were in trouble.

Our last night on the river path we paused
by bog cotton and wild flowers
to watch fish jump, and hope
for no further improvements.

Copyright © Drucilla Wall 2011