From “A First Glimpse of Ireland”

on a winter evening eyes see furthest 
to a hummock of mist on horizon 

to a kneeling giant    a U-shaped valley 
glacial moraine of gravel & clay   

to a knowing tide    the noise of the flood 
a surge of foam to cover us all 

to shell-sand that slowly accumulates 
in abandoned ridges of lazybeds 

to a broken landscape
exposed rock    avian vectors of birch 

evaporating ocean    a chain of islets 
to meadowsweet softened by drizzle

the fossilized needles of a monkey puzzle 
to coniferous patches of dark 

to a herd of stars coaxed from a river  
a very black thing at the edge of a sward

hazel saplings densely clustered 
fertilizing strips of dried seaweed 

to a rotting wolf in a field of clover 
a hedgerow in winter    the production of dust

to forests cleared of their greatest wood 
archipelagos drowned by the melting of ice 

to a crow on the brink of a cliff without wrinkle
ripples on the surface of a lake 

to an outburst of fish    hundreds of salmon 
a fruitful harbour entered through song

Copyright © 2025 by Dylan Brennan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 9, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.