The Boreen in Snow

Laugh and look away from death. What I fear –

A crash, some screaming – will not come to pass

Until my mind's eye makes it happen here

And now. The dead are sleeping under grass

In spring on a hillock just past this curve.

For those who do not look true love must live

Forever out of sight. I will not swerve;

There's no beast in the lane, nothing to give

Me pause to think, to turn today to then,

Unless the mind can stone by stone rebuild

The ruined castles of the past. The past?

Its lives and loves are like the Christmas wren,

Plucked living from the thatches and then killed

For pennies, for pleasures which never last.