Thanksgiving Comments

In memory of Michael Smith



About his life, the facts are in order

but the poet is missing and an elegy is called for

or at least a thanksgiving

for his book of dedications,

his days when he listened to a schoolroom clock

that seemed slower than time,

slower than the narrative of Caesar's wars,

a journey to the village of stone and dust

where they still had Good Friday Crucifixions

and the hired musicians played all night

the flamenco songs of Andelusia.



The poet is missing - has he gone

to Machado's garden or Mangan's doss house?

Perhaps to blend with the colours of the Alhambra,

seek again the after-rain stillness

of the air out west in Connemara.

No - he is gone the hidden ways

close to the river mouth where his song began

in the clamour of the bird market,

whistle of the North Wall Dredger Man.
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