The river slow in early summer heat, towpath good walking surface
To my disciplined stride, good boots, conversation shortening miles.
Swans nest on the far bank, the male
Arching his wings in flaring threat as I pass, explosion of feathers.
Moorhens shop in frenzy on the river's mall
Mallard are adolescent in direct lust, in flurried confusion.
Pigeons crash through branches, clapping wings at their own miracle
Of heavy-bodied flight.
Swallows grab a stirrup-cup as they mount in flight.
A hawk circles in a study of pretended laziness.
A firework kingfisher lights blue touch paper, rockets bush to tree.
The water eddies sometimes, but is mostly slow, so too
The talk of fields and birds, the survival of the elm
And children.

Gréagóir Ó Dúill was born Dublin , Ireland , raised in County Antrim , educated in Belfast , Dublin and Maynooth where he took his Ph.D. in English. Long associated with the Poets' House in Donegal, he was recently lecturer in contemporary writing in Irish in Queen's University, Belfast and taught creative writing in Waterford Institute of Technololgy.
Much published in Irish (eight collections and his selected verse, a literary biography and collection of short stories as well as two influential anthologies) he is more recently concentrating on work in English and his first collection of original poems in English, New Room Windows, was published by Doghouse, Tralee last May.
He lives in Ranelagh in Dublin and in Gort a' Choirce in the Donegal Gaeltacht.