Eamon Grennan (born 1941) is an Irish poet born in Dublin. He has lived in the United States, except for brief periods, since 1964. He was the Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Professor of English at Vassar College until his retirement in 2004.
LURK-LUSTER
Eamon Grennan
Gravity-defying, the lark in the clear air
of a June morning stays aloft on a hoist
of song only, and only when song goes
as breath gives out does the bird let
itself down the blue chute of air in such
an aftermath silence so profound you’d
think it was a double-life creature: one
life aloft in blue, all clarity, the other
hidden in the green swaddle of any
rocky field out here where, when
summer happens, you’d almost see the
long silver ribbons of song the bird
braids as if binding lit air to earth that is
all shadows, to keep us (as we walk our
grounded passages down here) alive to
what is over our heads—song and
silence—and the lot of us leaning up:
mind-defeated again, just harking to it.