Auguries of August

A poem by Gerard Smyth

Summer long we heard it all,

the helicopter with searchlights on,

long-distance trucks with their pin-ups

and amulets of St Christopher.

Not much of August left, the orchards

empty, rose gardens strewn with rose-confetti.

The glaciers melt, bread like bread:

so says the man who reads the news.

In what must be the last of summer’s

noisy festivals, they are sounding

the trumpets, banging the drums.

The city sparrows call to us

from the tree of words, the tree of numbers.

Summer long we heard it all,

the music shop playing Born to Run,

requiem and joyous hymn

and on the road to Spiddal

the keening whistle of a blind musician.

Gerard Smyth