The Tuesday Poem

The Arrival of Swallows

Back in Mayo after an Italian winter

we have no more use for our carnival masks.

They lie redundant as spring comes into colour,

the long-regarded hedges suddenly vigorous.

Into the confusion of this deepening green

a hare runs, like a player offside,

caught between an eye that held the moon

and a pace that could lift the countryside,

always unexpected, at an angle

to the attitude of a big lonely house

where the owner guards an empty shell

against the excesses of the wilderness,

until the swallows showed up, that is,

winging it low, always switching the game.

The place they wanted back was this

drive, this very porch where they swept in

to chatter over the nests at last year’s door

and start again by confounding every metaphor.

* Seán Lysaght was raised in Limerick and now lives in Westport. He has published eight volumes of poetry, including translations of Goethe. Carnival Masks, his latest, has just been published by The Gallery Press.