Endurance
Oisín Breen
we are all tired beyond knowing,
exhausted by endless labouring
and irrepressible want.
we stand in starlight,
eyes bursting, hungered, hands tracing
outlines of history on a marble altar,
and the past carries
a means to keep moving,
when memory retreats,
so we tremble,
At our failed search through felled trees,
one last revel-feat before delirium.
and I watch the fire,
and the Burren peat wards heat,
and I think of my mother,
of how she endured
what I endure,
as we all must.
Oisín Breen
we are all tired beyond knowing,
exhausted by endless labouring
and irrepressible want.
we stand in starlight,
eyes bursting, hungered, hands tracing
outlines of history on a marble altar,
and the past carries
a means to keep moving,
when memory retreats,
so we tremble,
At our failed search through felled trees,
one last revel-feat before delirium.
and I watch the fire,
and the Burren peat wards heat,
and I think of my mother,
of how she endured
what I endure,
as we all must.