[Rob Wright]

Eavan Boland has died. I don't know the circumstances, but I saw that she had written her last poem early this morning and I thought of this poem.
It was written for us.

The Poets

They, like all creatures being made
for the shovel and the worm,
Ransacked for their perishable minds and found
Pattern and form
And with their own hands quarried hard words
A figure which secret things confide.

They are abroad: their spirits like a pride
Of lions circulate,
Are desperate just as the jeweled beast,
That lion constellate,
Whose scenery is Betelgeuse and Mars,
Hunts without respite among the stars.

And they prevail: to his undoing every day
The essential sun
Proceeds but only to accommodate
A tenant moon,
And he remains until every break
Of morning absentee landlord of the dark.