Day’s End, Knockfierna

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.