To a Couple Who Had Their Rings Brought to the Altar by Drone at Their Garden Wedding
I’ll say this for you: you’re unafraid of mockery
and the coldly irritable judgements of posterity.
You’re unafraid of accusations of faddishness.
You’re possibly unafraid of technology itself.
And, most impressively, you’re unafraid of the wind,
which bucked the drone almost to ringlessness.
It was a katabatic wind that brought a chill
to the wedding party and unnerved the nerveless
among the guests. It was just an everyday wind, really,
a Saturday gust that wouldn’t have troubled
a pair of ring-bearing kids dressed like elderly dove-breeders
in their flat caps and braces, or like Arts and Crafts fairies
with acanthus-embroidered cushions and Celtic buttons.
But the drone felt the drama in the wind,
and the drone alone knew how to fit it into
this day that you say is a whole life in miniature.
It’s time for the presents. The quadcopter operator
offers the pitch and yaw. The caterers offer the rolls.
The only perfect rhyme for ‘lover’ is ‘lover’.
Go forth and hover.
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 130:
Poetry Ireland Review 130, the first issue from editor Colette Bryce, contains new poems from Michael Longley, Tara Bergin, Mícheál McCann, Emily S Cooper, Martina Evans, Gerard Smyth, Julie Morrissy, Afric McGlinchey, and Gabriel Rosenstock, among many others. There's an interview with broadcaster John Kelly on coming out as poet in his middle years, while Doireann Ní Ghríofa provides an extract from A Ghost In The Throat, her essay/memoir about coming-of-age as a poet through the poetry and passion of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill.
There are 26 titles reviewed in this issue, including new collections from Paul Muldoon, Paddy Bushe, Julie Morrissy, Enda Coyle-Greene, Caitlin Newby, and Peter Sirr, along with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's assessment of the lifetime achievement of the late Dorothy Molloy. Louise Leonard provides the cover art and image insert for this issue, a series of superb etchings from parkland, river, and glade, all safely within 2 kilometres walk of every reader of Poetry Ireland Review.