Green Migration

Green Migration

by Dr. Connie Voisine

for Sinead ni Mhaonaigh’s painting, Teorainn no. 6

Let’s turn off the radio.  

Turn off the sea you forged over. 

Turn off the boundaries in it. 

Let’s say “burrow,” much better 

than “taxes.” So, here for us:  

a house so red, and a new green  

is here too, with borders  

beyond which we screen

what’s lost and previous. 

It’s too hard still to call this land  

handsome, safe or home. 

Who can settle a house maimed

by sadness? In tales, children  

must pass through a wooded maze 

of green. What a difficult moving, 

past a wolf, the burdened blaze

of moon, so we’ll add some 

wheels, rimmed, black and road 

ready for a future fleeing. 

On this dark promontory bowed 

and still, we feel how small the island  

of house. How open to sky like a poem 

is this roof in pink, how lit the red speckles, 

muscle to move this vessel home.