Great Trees
You come to a house not completely yours
since rain staked a claim on the room with buckled windows;
the phrase work to be done comes easily now
as aches and pains to the man who's stopped counting years.
This is how it will be when your paths cross:
great trees casting shadows on his mind,
for you, the walls of a classroom when the world massed
clean and lovely outside, crying to be found.
And it dawns on you a little more clearly each time
that life is a promise wearing an inside-out coat,
that flight has been an escape to, not from,
and you end up glad in your way to be back where you started.
Ted Mc Carthy is a poet, translator and playwright living in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has had two collections published, November Wedding, and Beverly Downs. A number of his podcasts were produced as part of the National Decade of Centenaries commemorations.
His work can be found on http://www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com
Amethyst Review 