"The falling snow will melt before 7:00
and no one will know.
It lies on the terrace.
Gnarled leathers, raked bricks, old roses rot in a cap of ice.
No cats.
No mice.
This is a light morning snow that
like spittle, dribbles on the stones and fades into rivulets.
Green, frozen lettuce on the banks, a Palestinian flag
waves in this small, Irish town, the correspondence being
children throwing stones.
Behold, clouds Irishly low and silver.
Weather is a god more potent than money and war.
Protean, indifferent, it will resurrect then crucify
without mercy.
The south turns into the north at the border.
Structures grow stern and Norman.
The fields are beaten into submission
and narrow lipped stone houses wonder
if there are distinctions between humans worth knowing.
Nowhere is better than a road without judgment.