[Padraic Fallon's Poems were published by Dolmen Press, Dublin, in 1973, the year of his death. A second volume, Poems and Versions, is due out this spring. ]

ONE EASTER MORNING

The first Ephebe thunderstruck between
The maidenhead and the mother sweats with fear:
Narcissus drops eternal anchor here,
The swathed genital the dangerous theme;

Already he carries the thousand years of me,
My broken nakedness, my old-age cry;
And I the lonely terror of the boy,
Unable for Mother Ogre and the mystery.

In between are the lover's years. Forgive
The time that never found the clockfaced moon
Chime with the moment that brings us two alive,

That brings to love the fabulous young head
And love's own body to an ageing man,
To the gold shower and the vast untrammelled bed.
...