For all the wavering truth of trees reflected in rainwater, or the undulant
disappearing bulk of the white-tail deer into the deer-coloured dusk
of the apple orchard, its raised tail a pennant of life on the run, its
pure white glimmer-candle gone as soon as seen; for all that I believe
of transience – each moment murdered by the next one, each breath
dying into its twin – it still seems impossible to find a right language
for how our daughter shoulders her own heavy bags and boards the train
and is taken from us, just a shadow of a shadow kissing its fingers
at where our shadows stand outside, me settling an arm around
your shoulders, your pale face and hair nearly ghostly in the air that’s
otherwise all gold, saffron, rust, Bordeaux, as our girl – speedy as
any express – is taken into the distance her own life is now, a place
set well beyond lullaby or open-eyed angel, a nameless space we keep
peering into for that sheer glimmer, girl-shaped, flickering into dusk.
Eamon Grennan