Oscar McHale
The hill is privy to her last, relentless pour,
Bathing blades of grass as she rests her golden hair,
Entangling, obscuring it among them.
Dichotomous to growing shadows merely fleeting,
She has given herself utterly to all that grazes and grows.
And now her final breadth like water streams
Trickles past and stirs the trees.
And on this sometimes skyline bank,
Crows rest against the turning sky
Like soldiers,
Or unfinished poems,
Waiting patiently in weary lines
To be blacked out, obscured,
And fade from thought and vision
Towards some uncertain, chaotic, mass.
Curling their wings towards fading forms,
The treeline is left hollow
For bats to bend and whip the air,
Insectivorous sirens,
Beckoning, luring towards their prey in quiet song
That pitch of night-time chorus.
And with this all fruits of day’s labour fall,
Return to soil:
Mindless,
Necessary,
Meticulous
Toil.
But it will sprout and start again.
Such is her waking promise.