Halcyon

Mark Roper has given me permission to post his essay about his poem Halcyon. Halcyon seems ostensibly to be a poem about a kingfisher, but really it is a poem about his mother. I had read the poem before I had known he had written the essay. The essay will be published in the coming months in a periodical in the UK.

I heard Mark do a reading where he presented this essay to us at Annaghmakerrig. It is amazing how differently I see the poem now. I recently reread the essay and I decided that if I am to post his essay on my blog, I should give you the same opportunity to read the poem before learning the story behind it. So, here it is:

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HALCYON

I’ve never seen the kingfisher
you claim to have witnessed
on the stand of brackish water
at the edge of our wood.

Years I’ve been looking.
Not a sign. Wrong habitat
too: no bank for nesting,
indeed no fish. Face it

there was no bird yet
each time I pass I peer into
that gloom and each time
this comes to mind:

a flash of chestnutsapphire.
A small flame brooding on ooze.
Your words made light.
Your bright idea. You diving

through the long years
of grief to surface here,
halcyon, incorruptible.
And not one bird but a pair.