thoughtful than they often get
described as being; while the sky,
with blue impartiality,
may be forecasting the first
snowfall .... To sense purpose in turning
to the desk again se'ems right,
the crossed-out sentences and lines
summoning words and pauses always
nearer those that will be felt
as having stood by from the start,
waiting to assume their place.
The heat clicks on. Somewhere a bell.
All the objects here have twinned themselves
with stories. The room's a cradle, or an ark;
it says that half the point of our departure
is coming back - suggestion followed by one
who breaks off work to watch the setting sun.
Eavan Boland
THE BOTTLE GARDEN
I decanted them-feather mosses, fan-shaped plants,
asymmetric greys in the begonia-
into this globe which shows up how the fern shares
the invertebrate lace of the sea-horse.
The sun is in the bottle garden,
submarine, out of its element
when I come down on a spring morning;
my sweet, greenish, inland underwater.
And in my late thirties, past the middle way,
