Roe Park

Sun beautifies the tennis strokes. A hum
of racquet strings. Talk by the summer-house
suggests a branch of happiness. Now guests
are leaving, loitering by the door beside
the yellow valley, silent after so much
laughing . . .

Her husband died, she spent her days in the garden
and walked across the floors to watch the fading
daylight as she passed from room to room.
Outside - a war beyond soft Irish slopes:
in it someone she wrote letters to.
When the war ended he saluted trees
instead of officers. They farmed like poets,
digging deeply for a gentle word.
Can love be free of geography? He said
'Place exists in you, the green
...