Everything is going to be all right

This spring, when we were losing Mary, I came across some wonderful poems on Anthony Wilson’s Lifesaving Poems Blog (now a paperback.)

Some of these poems are now part of a collection of poems that I know I’ll read again and again through the coming years.  (I was going to write “some of these poems are now engraved on my heart,” but I thought you’d say “What?” )

Anyway…I’m really pleased that I now have permission to share my favourite one of them here, with you:

Everything is Going to be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The poems flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

The sun rises in spite of everything

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.

Derek Mahon

from New Collected Poems (2011) by kind permission of The Gallery Press