Dermot Healy 1947-2014

It was like an eye opening,
An eye, or a space
Between life and itself,
And through it poured the days,

The years, the mountain-shapes.
There was a smell of hay,
And swallows, elbowing a way
Between nothing and nothing,

Keeping the elements open wide
And summer at the full.
In the high corner of a field,
On this side of the wall,

A human crowd, a passing bell.
This being Ireland, sea in the distance,
Blue-grey skies, the changeable –
In short, existence

On the latch, or the hook,
Like a sashed country window,
An eyelid, or an inch of light
Propped open by a book.