Passersby

         Cast a cold eye
         On life, on death
         Horseman, pass by!*

Who is buried in this grave may be subject
to debate, but we feel him here, we five
American poets sitting at his foot
or headstone. Coins of sun dangle on the oaks
and ivy. Swan shapes skew the entrance
to the church. In the parking lot, a carved poet
squats before his stonish blanket
pleading for a light tread on his dreams.

To Yeats we read his own stanzas, pause,
disobey, then pass on to fling
our hitched breaths against the green tiger-
mountain. We make out the fairy portal
in its flank, look away, then back.
It has vanished with the jade.

By the roadside, the thousand year old
limestone cross dissolves under elements and eyes.
Phantom Irish setters lead us up
the green road where sheep have left bits
of their coats stuck on hawthorn, like threads
through a ring fort. We, too, could stick
to these thorns or drown in clouds
in the coves of the sky, but we will
return to the gallopings of our own time.



*William Butler Yeats’ words inscribed on his tombstone