Dum Spiro, Spero

While I Breathe, I Hope

Song

A rowan like a lipsticked girl.

Between the by-road and the main road

Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance

Stand off among the rushes.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect

And the immortelles of perfect pitch

And that moment when the bird sings very close

To the music of what happens.

Seamus Heany. “Song.” Field Work. (1979)