Poem of the Day » patrick-kavanagh http://www.shortpoems.org/poem Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:19:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2 Innocence – Patrick Kavanagh http://www.shortpoems.org/poem/innocence-patrick-kavanagh/ http://www.shortpoems.org/poem/innocence-patrick-kavanagh/#comments Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:41:45 +0000 tejvan http://www.shortpoems.org/poem/2008/03/30/innocence-patrick-kavanagh/ They laughed at one I loved-
The triangular hill that hung
Under the Big Forth. They said
That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges
Of the little farm and did not know the world.
But I knew that love’s doorway to life
Is the same doorway everywhere.
Ashamed of what I loved
I flung her from me and called her a ditch
Although she was smiling at me with violets.

But now I am back in her briary arms
The dew of an Indian Summer lies
On bleached potato-stalks
What age am I?

I do not know what age I am,
I am no mortal age;
I know nothing of women, Nothing of cities,
I cannot die Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges.

- Patrick Kavanagh

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In Memory of My Mother – Patrick Kavanagh http://www.shortpoems.org/poem/in-memory-of-my-mother-patrick-kavanagh/ http://www.shortpoems.org/poem/in-memory-of-my-mother-patrick-kavanagh/#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:07:47 +0000 tejvan http://www.shortpoems.org/poem/2008/03/06/in-memory-of-my-mother-patrick-kavanagh/ I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday–
You meet me and you say:
‘Don’t forget to see about the cattle–’
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.
And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life–
And I see us meeting at the end of a town on a fair day by accident,
after the bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.
O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us — eternally.

Patrick Kavanagh

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