The sky is a bleach-scrubbed blue
And I want to burst open my wrists
Not for death but for the
Air to clean my blood
Rinse me out and lighten me up.
Everything glistens and sings and I trot along
Buoyed up by gratitude for I-don’t-know-what.
The filthy river sparkles as if waving.
People have exchanged endurance for purpose.
The trying, strain of it all
Seems to have relaxed
As if the sun had softened the butter of the city.
Greasy with good feeling.
Bright new clothes.
Sticky, sun-creamed children.
To uncover these flashes of the now
Unbidden
Is to know that mental machinations serve only to enslave.
That if we are to go to our graves satisfied
We must allow the air on our tongues
And the birdsong to suffice.
To take an evening stroll through Cork
And not think thrice.
Peace comes dropping slow 