[Before the storm]

I'm walking away from hope
Childish in my care for the cracked stone
I must be for my mother
            My forehead once felt her kiss
                              Then felt her wrist
I pity the men who can step anywhere  

Anywhere in the grey
Above Dublin's familiar streets
Bubbling, their tea in hell
           It has the taste of fear as well
                             I have made them
Their new reality did not account for me

I bought you a bicycle for your birthday
I helped you to unwrap it
And we rode through the morning
           Brushing nettles
                           And when fox brush fluttered
We were unsettled

Why were you so cold?
When the Sun submerged into galaxies
To become your face and your cheeks
         And the leaves lay on cellophane
                          Your eyes seemed so old to me
But your smile was philosophy

Long hair was blooming in the wind
A deal made with the God Time
No need for penitence
        No need for any of it
                         Tell me there is a way
And I will wage war with the waves

Speeding ahead with my eyes on the stars
And the moon which stays fixed
No matter how fast I pedal
Even when small stones
Get stuck in the metal
And I fly through the air like a feather

I lay with the pattering in a puddle
I lay with the rain and the mud forever