Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Inspired by Paula Meehan's 'Six Sycamores'

Stephen’s Green

Trees don’t care about these strictures
least of all the sycamore, the weed tree:
it strews its seeds across planners’ pictures
of tidy flower beds, of green formality.

And the people don’t care, spilling cans,
stubbing out their fags on the statues,
pissing, in passing, in the bandstands:
their park’s in no part home to virtues.

There’s no regard either for the ducks,
those defecators at the water’s edge:
the wildlife here doesn’t give two fucks,
duck-spattering you right off your sandwich.

Not history, nor ordinances, nor metaphors:
forgotten initials and entwinements, under sycamores.

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