Weightless clouds shake the bowels of metal birds
and the unfortunate occupants--
a new generation of Jonahs,
who have thrown themselves willingly into
the belly of a beast
to be carried to a new shore.
What gods have we ignored?
My body anticipated its return here,
and raises my temperature as a purging fire.
Heightened awareness, my super-self burns,
iron eyelids crash to meet and then are hoisted apart again,
each vertebrae hammers nails into its neighbor's fence,
lungs suck oxygen out of fog,
each breathe thick like the history of this place,
grey like the streets and the buildings and the sky.
To compensate, true Irishmen learn to count the shades of green,
more than forty, they say (with their beautiful r's).
Each shade is a seed,
it gets planted in the spirit
until blood flows green and veins are vines.
I must learn to count the greens.
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