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Foxgloves

Rebecca, our first-born,now thirty-nine

flies in to check that I am well again

and spots beside the bed the photograph

I took of you when you were carrying her

six months gone in your purple polo-neck

and blue smock, and laughing, I remember,

because I have decorated with sea pinks

your black abundant hair, and given you

foxgloves to hold as though to welcome her

to the strand at Inch and the Kerry hills.

Can you go on smiling from your dune-throne

with your hair and hands full of summer flowers?

Because the marram grass is damp and sandy

I have spread a yellow oilskin under you.

Michael Longley

A Hundred Doors