A poem by Gerard Smyth
Summer long we heard it all,
the helicopter with searchlights on,
long-distance trucks with their pin-ups
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and amulets of St Christopher.
Not much of August left, the orchards
empty, rose gardens strewn with rose-confetti.
The glaciers melt, bread like bread:
so says the man who reads the news.
In what must be the last of summer’s
noisy festivals, they are sounding
the trumpets, banging the drums.
The city sparrows call to us
from the tree of words, the tree of numbers.
Summer long we heard it all,
the music shop playing Born to Run,
requiem and joyous hymn
and on the road to Spiddal
the keening whistle of a blind musician.
Gerard Smyth
