I saw you first in a library,
in a bound book on front of the light,
as if you needed to ripen any further.
My first book, bound and borrowed
from a library, was Mrs. Potter’s
inquisitive rabbit Peter, all eager
to explore the taste of all he could
not yet name. We’re like that, children-
eager for the answer before we’ve
really come to consider the question.
I ask myself more now, at this midway
through the darkness than I ever did
then, where all was so seemingly light.
Yesterday, in the garden my youth
once played on, that time has now
returned to consider, an eager rabbit
came out to play and I asked if perhaps
there was camomile in the cupboard.

No, but there’s a pomegranate
in the pantry

came the reply.

And I looked at Peter and laughed
like I’d taken you from the bookshelf
in that light library, that day and smiled
as I turned your pages that held just
as many questions as there were answers.

For Eavan Boland. 

Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly.