Eamon Grennan (1941 - / Dublin, Ireland)

The whole chorus saying only one thing: look
at what goes, where we stand in the midst of it:
Golden eyes of the beginning, deep patience
of the end. Stone-deaf, the rocks in silence
are writing our lives: mossed, or lichen- daubed
to brightness, their gravity is here to stay. . .
but so is the butterfly winged with light
and in a dozen minds at once, letting its life
be wamble and whim as air determines, though still
a fixed purpose sticks to it, it knows the score
the chorus follows as one voice, singing
Light whelms, whelms, and will end us, while
a painter, old, is leaning slightly to the right or left.