After months of silence, the magnolia
have started to clear their throats,
fledgling beaks bursting into the sky,
while the ducks in Ranelagh Gardens
paddle in pairs around the stagnant pond,
shadowing the couples strolling on the bank.
The world is consumed by what will happen
next, knowing, that even when a decision
is made, it is only the beginning,
and so much depends on the mood
of the heron, abstracted
in the shallows, as though listening
on earbuds to the 3.30 from Haydock
and counting down the days
for the first ducklings to arrive.
Maurice Devitt is Curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site. His Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. His second collection, ‘Some of These Stories are True’, was published by Doire Press in 2023.