Daniel Galvin

Little Green Leaves

The May storm blows harshly
over the leaves of cherry trees,
with nearly all the fury of winter’s winds,
but without the howling, lonely dread.

The little green leaves do not tremble
but dance – euphoric –
accompanied by raindrops,
as they, swaying, mock the storm
with youthful mirth.
All are drunk in Nature’s way.

And I, in my chair and at my desk, imagine
that you, too, are dancing like these
little green leaves tonight;
far from me but happy.

And that, perhaps, when he bends to kiss you
in a lull, while the storm breathes,
and you look up at him with dark, endless eyes,
you will wonder why – if only for a moment –
he does not brush your hair behind your ear
and you do not feel enveloped in a fiery love
as you did once when the trees were almost bare
and you and I danced a very different dance
of broken souls made whole again.
A dance I foolishly thought could last forever.
A dance impossible for little green leaves.

Notes

I have notes of yours,
written in your
flowing,
painter’s hand,
that I have kept for years.
And I remember
gently folding
and placing them,
like relics
of a living saint,
inside books
I sent across the sea
so that you could always
be with me.

But they are just papers.
And I remember now,
how you’d check your pen
on little corners
not by scrawling poems,
or a word in one of your
many languages,
but by writing your own name.
And now I am done writing yours.

I have let you go.
And who would have thought
it would be
this easy?
Not at all like
breathing
underwater.

And I feel
lighter, now,
than I have
since those notes
began to weigh,
weigh me down.
And I am sure, now,
if it really
came down to it,
that, anyway,
I would
float.

Mathúin Mac Coisdealbha is a postgraduate student in his mid-twenties now living outside of London. Heavily influenced by Yeats, Kavanagh, and Joyce, he hopes to someday teach in a quiet, grey town along Ireland’s western shore.