Patrick Deeley
Le Gave
About us the Pyrenees, thronged with trees.
Le Gave, by what springs and waterfalls
did we reach this level? To lean
over a rock and fathom the feeling of falling,
to raise our eyes and imagine we soar.
Grasshoppers click amid the melting snow.
Butterflies sunbathe. Stone breaks
into flower. We invoke the poet Russell,
who scaled these mountains, sang these caves;
we set the eagle of legend dropping
a fish on the besieged castle at Lourdes.
And it's a case of step in, be taken
at the ankles by the cold waters of Le Gave.
It's grey matter, part of the background
that isn't noticed until it starts to run –
then you recall the lizard of Lora del Rio,
which climbed to become the town
clock's confounding hand, and I the green
lizard of Ballydoogan, whose livewire
tail once broke off to write me a red scribble.
Page(s) 50
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