David Butler reads from his new collection, Liffey Sequence (Doire Press)
Leaf Storm
i.m. my mother
Some days after the diagnosis
set time, a death-watch beetle,
ticking, you set out undaunted
for the park. Your time of year –
air cold as water, the trees
touched with fleeting majesty.
As we rounded a beech copse,
a puckish wind stirred up and,
like Dante’s fugitives, drove all
about a streaming leaf storm,
shoal-dense and endless, brass
after brass, chattering, sheering
in great murmurations, showing
there is raw grandeur in letting go.
David Butler’s new collection Liffey Sequence is out now with Doire Press.
