for William Butler Yeats, unsurpassed
and for the late Irish Belgian poet, Martin Burke, my
friend.
no one shall dare to sing again about the milky stars
to measure time and history by the gravitas of the Rose
to find the still music in the overshadowing woods
by heart, composed.
or beauty keening desolate in the margin of dream,
along the white roads.
requiescat, then.
no one shall call them by name, the innumerable swans
or command the peacock tinted skies
to whorl, to whirl through poetry devised
for all that dies and cannot find its way
changeling, through the anguish of the living day
when what is noble dims to merely enterprise.
strike the harp they will not dare again
to call back those doom fretted men
of the Easter Rising
tuned to the fatal hour and impervious-
babble of power as they will.
nor shall they compel the winds to rise
from Thoor Ballylee
the mythic sails to fill
no celtic twilight, seconding the first
to bud forth into reechoing infinity;
because the first remains.
nor through driving rains
summers in Byzantium
to shine again
confounding music in the end
nor words to strive
against the churlish, the cherishless tides.
mary angela douglas August 1-3. 2023
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