Letter

1st May 2020

dear P

I am on a walk

now walking backwards
up the hill

maroon leaking from my chest.

there’s a kind of electricity in the landscape
since Eavan died — beauty I’ve not met before.

sometimes I see her in the bough of a tree, smiling
so unstoppably I can travel a whole day upon its power.

*

I walk fast — I may have inhaled a fly
I am also restless.

DK told me not to train as a psychotherapist
because I am too restless. I spoke to N about this —
said he’s restless too, a certain amount of energy
he needs to use up each day.
what I take from this
is that I need to put it into whatever is calling for it
...horses, poems, hearts,
trees. not simply trees but
trees. service.

You?

*

blanket of lime green
to my left; the fog advancing.

Eavan: stalwart. D had a moment of screaming for her
in the kitchen yesterday. Had to hand over the washing up to A.
His vision, he said, was of Eavan walking away across the Quad.

She was walking slowly — but she kept walking, away, determined.

Now the light has turned away the trees are thinning,
heightening.

Two years ago now
I am walking through those colonnades
with Eavan. your challenge now is to learn how to live between two places, she says, then ping: an email from her daughter or granddaughter in Dublin asking for another GAP sweater. she seems at once endeared and annoyed —she has already been to GAP to get this quarter’s requests.

*

I wonder if we can go to the memorial service,
if it can take place in these strange times.