North West Passage

I.M of Michael Hartnett

Rise little blackbird
To the top of the tree
Your song is witness
To pain and joy.

The sky was like a turner painting
A dusky pink hue, hanging melancholy.
I’m planning to drive to Donegal
And listen to the Lambchop C.D.

This music still drifts me in and out
Of reality. Driving down the motor-
Way behind a horse box as if
The horses head came from a painting
Into my imagination, galloping bareback
Through the Bann and the Blackwater
Below a bridge where children wave.

Across the Sperrins past the raised ruins
And the raised to the ground ruins of history
On the north west passage through the fairy
Water into another world embroidered
In memory, thatched into time.