Historic Floods

Hudson Valley
Lent, 2010

I’ve never seen this creek
move with such speed
right before it lifts
and covers the road.
Tonight, the detour home
takes me through
remnants of Dutch hamlets
that held on to the language
longer than the rest.

With so many roads closed,
I drive in spirals.
When I emerge,
I will be uncertain
of time and place,
of what has been mended,
and what is left behind.

*
Holy Week, 2011

For days the brown river
has been rising above its banks.
Outside the prison,
through the bare woods
I see an animal path,
before the green of the leaves
will close down the woods
for months on end.

The tint of cream
in this Spring light
gently washes the road home.
This is Good Friday,
shadows grow long
as day approaches three o’clock.

These are the days
when one time and another time
come close as the breath
of a young mother and her first born.

---

Previously published in Skylight 47, 2013

---

Tim Dwyer’s recent book is: Smithy Of Our Longing: Poems From The Irish Diaspora (Lapwing Publications, 2015).  His poems have appeared in journals including Boyne Berries, Cork Literary Review, The Stinging Fly and Stony Thursday Book.  His parents were from East Galway and he currently lives in Stamford, Connecticut.