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 "Gerard
Donovan is a man of two countries, teasing the beauty
out of what lies in between. The LightHouse is easily his
finest work so far, haunted, plaintive, hopeful and raucous.
Like all good poems, they create a temporary silence around
themselves, luring us in and stunning us. The LightHouse
is a great collection." -- Colum McCann, Author of
This Side of Brightness
"Donovan's
poems are a joy to read. Their diversity defies categorization
-- the poem glistens with detail." Irish Echo, New
York
"Donovan
is capable of taking an idea and unfolding it back to discover
unexpected areas of meaning and suggestion." Poetry Ireland
Review
About
the Author
 Gerard
Donovan, who was born in Wexford and grew up in Galway,
is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. The author of
two previous collections, Columbus
Rides Again (Salmon, 1993) and Kings
and Bicycles (Salmon, 1995), his poetry has appeared
in journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including The
Sewanee Review, New Statesman, Stand, and the Irish Times.
After a career playing classical guitar in the eighties,
he currently works as a professor in New York. In 1999 he
completed the 140-mile Marathon des Sables in North Africa
with his two brothers, later the subject of an award-winning
documentary.
Poems
from The Lighthouse
| The
Body Lights |
| |
| Not
far from our window, the lighthouse dreams. |
| Its
steel steps draft short breaths, |
| the
granite flashes a heartbeat |
| under
nightÕs vast sheet. |
| |
| And
now a breeze |
| parts
the curtains into waves: |
| that
glow again, like eyes opening. |
| |
| When
I dream, I too flicker between light and dark. |
| As
you lie beside me, you see nothing of this. |
| You
sleep like coastal distance, |
| another
light in a long night, |
| |
| your
body spread from the pillow |
| like
moon's reflection. |
| Your
skin covers you like water. |
| You
are as full of light |
| as
your first breath. |
| |
| Night
turns restless on its side. |
| The
first birds sing on whitening sea. |
| |
| |
| Starlings |
| |
| In
a boiling second |
| the
starlings strip off trees |
| to
a shrill scarf trailing in a gust, |
| curving,
whipped, contorted, |
| crumpling
to the roadside grass. |
| |
| Today
is colder, the wind north; |
| sparseness,
contained a season, spills everywhere. |
| A
few people walk the trails, |
| each
breath marked, then released by air. |
| A
child might see those birds as leaves |
| that
scrape the sky with yellow veins. |
| I
seem to lose that magic year by year. |
| |
| I'm
learning to open my hands; they fill |
| with
what I let go. So I freed you too. |
| By
the way, I forecast autumn by starlings: |
| it
arrived today at two in the afternoon. |
| I
had coffee and then came to the park |
| and
it touched me on the shoulder ? just like that, I swear. |
| |
| (Copyright
Gerard Donovan 2000) |
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(You can
remove it later if you change your mind!)
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