The Moon Pond by Medbh McGuckian

I thought this morning of my yelllowed Juliette cap,
Its head-dress of arificial perals that I wore once,
And never wore again . . . It is not the same
With this bright moon pond where, they say,
If you come once you'll likely come again,
Fed slowly by the natural canal, where swims the otter
You were dreaming had made you pregnant.

As with an egg I close my mouth, with an egg
I open it again, my May Day rising, after
My warrior's sleep, and crossing the fat churchyard
Left by a green Christmas, the souls of the dead
Ast thick as bees in an uncut meadow round me.
I leave a bowl of spring water womanly on the table
For your wild and nameless sprays before they withered.

I leave a stack of salt fallen from a thimble,
A measure of milk with a cock's step of butter,
Coming in hills and going in moutains:
For this milk-fevered lady is the round-eyed child
Listening with bated breath to the singalong
Of birds that, waking in the heart of rain,
Would just as bodly start to mate again.