Una Woods

someone didn't arrive
once
and a piece of arrival
was lost
...

when a voice called out
in the night street
the name it called
was absence
...

on Connolly's hill
a tractor whirrs
a reedy whistle plays along
with the piping river
...

suddenly across the silence
of the evening countryside
a sheep cries out
from an unseen field
...

The fragile thrush
prickling with existence
dusk's camouflage, a silent glow-worm
spreads on the damp grass
...

the bitter orchard trees
the flinty stars
a harsh moon-match
struck in the whitewashed yard
...

only the stripped thing
only the primrose smoke
the sunset chimneys thread
only the voice bud-pinned
...

the steady solitary clump
of homebound cows
like the earth's clock
on the dot of evening
...

garden stones
commandments placed around the edge
of the freedom of flowers to grow wild
or in themselves symbols
...

beech leaves squinting yellow
across the yard
brass keyholes in the sun
iced in
...

ajar the glimmer
dusk creeps door to door
hall lights tempt the
outsider
...

a word
so private
a Sunday parlour
couldn't say it
...

hill upon hill
the distance
pressed up against
time after time
...

a pink wall
made vacant by the
midday sun
a shock to the promised
...