University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)

Old RoadAuthor(s): Maurice HarmonSource: New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), p. 45Published by: University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20557708 .

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Maurice Harmon

Fil?ocht Nua: New Poetry

OLD ROAD

Just rambling,

but it was one of those woods

where the eye's flight is checked

by swift declivities, leaf-tumbles, and slides,

by thickets of branch and briar.

Where you go by instinct

not by trail or track,

where the boundary wall's thick overhang

of clotted ivy blots the sky.

You mentioned old roads on old maps

and as we stumbled out upon a road

a blob of light floated past, wavered,

stopped in front of me, in its flare

the head of a dog-wolf and all his shape coming through.

I was trying to clamber back,

pushing heels against ungrippable earth,

calling you, and that dog, or wolf,

coming for me, sniffing, suggesting fangs.

NEW HIBERNIA REVIEW/IRIS ?IREANNACH NUA, y.2 (SUMMER/SAMHRADH, 200l), 45~53

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.88 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 02:18:04 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions