Two Poems by Wesli Court
BLOOMSDAY
“And of course on Monday we have Bloomsday, so a Joyce poem will be in order.” — Rhina Espaillat
Today the prodigal returns once more
To roam the cobbled streets of Dublin town,
Returns to raise a toast, to blow the foam
From the glass of his ancestral home,
To quaff its best and take its lifeblood down
Where it will do some good. He will ignore
The little minds, the folk who drove him out
When he was nothing more than a youngling lout,
For now he is their hero, nothing less,
And they will celebrate again this day
The fellow with a pen who, in distress,
Left Ireland to wend an exile’s way
Until he could see clear the winding track
That he might take to find the true way back.
R.I.P. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Born June 13, 1865
The sunlight shines upon Sligo’s son this morn,
For ‘tis the birthday of the Bard of bards.
William lies sleeping in a bed of reeds
On Innisfree where the white swan preens and feeds,
Where the honeybee in the loud glade guards
The silence to be found in fern and thorn.
May he one day awaken and sing again
Of the good green land of bracken, brae and glen,
Oh may he sing once more of the lovely light
That lies upon the meads of Ireland,
May he tell us tales once more of night
Turned into clarity. Let the sun demand
The swan be as a flame of snowy white
Burning out of the sconce of sea and sand.
© 2005-2009 Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas