Leprechaun Tempest

There’s the snaky breathe of a midnight candle
Burnt out by a thrust on the door,
Removed from the trees, and their snore;
Someone’s there, watching us still
Living for us out there when we swindle
The night and leave it to battle
The tempest through the leaves on its own.

The wire has severed.
The birds that used to sit there
Will be gone…
All in one.

Even when heroes would travel to the daybreak
And wise men would have bored
Their philosophies with death’s detours,
A woman, in rags would be still
Living on the streets, nude, and dwindle
To an insane because that is what
An insane woman is fabled to be doing.

A mesh of bamboos stands high by rubble
Of a construction site now tore
Down by the tempest to nothing more;
Trees uprooted, leaving to swill
The spilling of more things to build,
There was next night new a sentinel
To watch over the fearful all night through.

But the wire has severed.
And the birds that used to sit there
Will they be really gone?
All in one?

If we were outside,
Would we really have died?