St Brigid’s Day, 2024

January ripped
the roof off our laundry shed,
but February’s first day dawns

with drizzle so fine it doesn’t wet
my glasses. Horizontal rain
that gusts off to the bay

in luminous veils
but I stay dry on my walk,
the sheen on the road

and spirit rain, all around me.
Then, at the White Strand
the clouds part

and sands dazzle.
Three different weather forecasts
predicted three entirely different days

and they were all right.
A woman in a bright red jacket
launches a ball,

her golden retriever
races after it and disappears
into sunlight.

Oh, the last few months
have tested
almost everything I know.

Let these hard times recede.
Let the air
love our skins again.

Theodore Deppe is the author of eight books of poems, most recently Impossible Blackbird (Arlen House 2024). His work has received a Pushcart Prize and been published in Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry, Kenyon Review, The Stinging Fly, Ploughshares, and Harper’s.

Theodore’s poem ‘Lullaby Before Leaving’ was one of four on the shortlist for Poem of the Year in the 2023 Irish Book Awards. He worked as a nurse for twenty years, then taught creative writing in MFA programmes in Ireland, the US, and the UK. He lives in Connemara with his wife, poet Annie Deppe.