And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you’ll park and capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

from Out of the Bag

1

All of us came in Doctor Kerlin’s bag.

He’d arrive with it, disappear to the room

And by the time he’d reappear to wash

Those nosy, rosy, big, soft hands of his

In the scullery basin, its lined insides

(The colour of a spaniel’s inside lug)

Were empty for all to see, the trap-sprung mouth

Unsnibbed and gaping wide. Then like a hypnotist

Unwinding us, he’d wind the instruments

Back into their lining, tie the cloth

Like an apron round itself,

Darken the door and leave

With the bag in his hand, a plump ark by the keel …

Until the next time came and in he’d come

In his fur-lined collar that was also spaniel-coloured

And go stooping up to the room again, a whiff

Of disinfectant, a Dutch interior gleam

Of waistcoat satin and highlights on the forceps.

Getting the water ready, that was next –

Not plumping hot, and not lukewarm, but soft,

Sud-luscious, saved for him from the rain-butt

And savoured by him afterwards, all thanks

Denied as he towelled hard and fast,

Then held his arms out suddenly behind him

To be squired and silk-lined into the camel coat.

At which point he once turned his eyes upon me,

Hyperborean, beyond-the-north-wind blue,

Two peepholes to the locked room I saw into

Every time his name was mentioned, skimmed

Milk and ice, swabbed porcelain, the white

And chill of tiles, steel hooks, chrome surgery tools

And blood dreeps in the sawdust where it thickened

At the foot of each cold wall. And overhead

The little, pendent, teat-hued infant parts

Strung neatly from a line up near the ceiling –

A toe, a foot and shin, an arm, a cock

A bit like the rosebud in his buttonhole.

4

The room I came from and the rest of us all came from

Stays pure reality where I stand alone,

Standing the passage of time, and she’s asleep

In sheets put on for the doctor, wedding presents

That showed up again and again, bridal

And usual and useful at births and deaths.