PRIMROSE by Patrick Kavanagh | from Complete Poems

“Upon a bank I sat, a child made seer

Of one small primrose flowering in my mind.

Better than wealth it is, said I, to find

One small page of Truth’s manuscript made clear.

I looked at Christ transfigured without fear –

The light was very beautiful and kind,

And where the Holy Ghost in flame had signed

I read it through the lenses of a tear.

And then my sight grew dim, I could not see

The primrose that had lighted me to Heaven,

And there was but the shadow of a tree

Ghostly among the stars. The years that pass

Like tired soldiers nevermore have given

Moments to see wonders in the grass.”

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The Devil by Patrick Kavanagh – from A View of God and the Devil

I met the devil too,

And the adjectives by which I would describe him are these:

Solemn,

Boring,

Conservative.

He was a man the world would appoint to a Board,

He would be on the list of invitees for a bishop’s garden party,

He would look like an artist.

He was the fellow who wrote in newspapers about music,

Got into a rage when someone laughed;

He was serious about unserious things;

You had to be careful about his inferiority complex

For he was conscious of being uncreative.

These two poems together always make me laugh. Patrick Kavanagh (1905-1967), the Monaghan poet who settled in Dublin and wrote so many beautiful and wonderful poems.

A haiku for Brendan Kennelly, poet.

I was at a bus stop in Dawson Street in Dublin when Brendan Kennelly walked past me:

Hello, the poet!

I called; he turned and smiled and

blew the sweetest kiss.

Everything is Going to be All Right – by Derek Mahon

Derek Mahon, Belfast man, died yesterday aged 78. He was considered one of the most innovative Irish poets in the sixties and seventies. This poem has been widely quoted since the arrival of Covid 19:

How should I not be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, and there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The poems flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

The sun rises in spite of everything

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.