Celebrate National Poetry Month with us and enjoy a Poetry Per Diem each day for the month of April!
Today’s poem is from Eavan Boland’s book of poems titled New Collected Poems.
A Ballad of Home
How we kissed
in our half built-house!
It was slightly timbered,
a bit bricked, on stilts
and we were newly married.
We drove out at dusk
and picked our way to safety
through flint and grit and brick.
Like water through a porthole,
the sky poured in.
We sat on one step
making estimations
and hugged until the watchman
called and cursed and swung
his waterproof torch
into our calculations.
Ten years on:
you wouldn’t find now
an inch of spare ground.
Children in their cots,
books, a cat, plants
strain the walls’ patience
and the last ounce of space.
And still every night
it all seems so sound.
But love why wouldn’t it?
This house was built on our embrace
and there are worse foundations.
This book can be found in the Island Free Library
collection, upstairs under call number 821.914 BOL. Stay tuned for another poem tomorrow!