Patrick Early
I Walk Too Fast
Walking on the hills behind our house,
(fold after fold of downs with their lovely plough-lines,)
you fall behind as you like to do.
You say Dublin girls much prefer pavements.
I walk too fast.
I never wait for you.
But I am distracted,
moving forward into the failing light,
noting how junipers
don’t grow regular and shapely like larches,
but tumble lopsided by the path,
their berries squeezed into blue-black peppercorns.
Noting also how stunted
is wild-growing lavender,
and the bitter scent of wild box on the air.
At a turn in the path, a deer gets up,
crashes headlong through the hedge
and runs jinxing into the darkening field.
For a second or two, the glamour of the deer
disturbs the air, much as a stream
is dishevelled when a fish jumps,
and closes back over the breach
seamlessly.
So blue dusk enfolds the deer’s flight,
just as you, rounding the bend,
call out to ask: What was that ?
What happened?
Page(s) 34
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