Noel Monahan – Stone-Breaker

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STONE-BREAKER (after the saxifraga flower) by celebrated Irish poet Noel Monahan

                        We survived the last ice age, huddling

                        Eye-to-eye in a land of clouds, skylight of open air

                        Looking down on distant hills of ice, pillows of snow.

                        We are the unsung song of the Cuilcagh Mountains,

                        In tune with the howls of the wind

                        Constant crunch and crackle of ice chunks.

                        We are the dream catchers

                                                Flowers growing for ghosts,

                        We are outlaws revelling on our own

                        Hanging on to arteries of stone.

                        We are fossil flowers, a blizzard of bloom,

                        Tough and tender, bent on growing into seed.

                        Our only prayers that some seeds may fly

                        With the winds of chance

                        Into the open mouths of years to come.

 

Noel Monahan © 2015