I know now, of course, about the residual
Morphine seeping the length of my spine
Like sap rising in trees. But equally, I know,
For hour after timeless, crepuscular hour
The ward hummed and pulsed and whistled
Itself into rainforest, wings flashed emerald
Or red from one branched and tendrilled bed
To another, calling out warning or reassurance
Above the rhythm of invisible cicadas, while I
Was still migrant, a bird of uncertain passage.
Paddy Bushe writes in Irish and English. He won The Irish Times Poetry Now Award for On A Turning Wing (Dedalus 2016). His collections include Double Vision (Dedalus, 2020).
Morphine seeping the length of my spine
Like sap rising in trees. But equally, I know,
For hour after timeless, crepuscular hour
The ward hummed and pulsed and whistled
Itself into rainforest, wings flashed emerald
Or red from one branched and tendrilled bed
To another, calling out warning or reassurance
Above the rhythm of invisible cicadas, while I
Was still migrant, a bird of uncertain passage.
Paddy Bushe writes in Irish and English. He won The Irish Times Poetry Now Award for On A Turning Wing (Dedalus 2016). His collections include Double Vision (Dedalus, 2020).
