From the black height of Atlantis
From the black height of Atlantis you dived,
A seabird plunge into swollen water,
I, at the shore, wrapped in borrowed garments,
Immaculate white, escaping the heat,
Only later, pressed to your skin there came,
The slow blood-trickle of rapid descent;
I buried you with stones, laid them over
Each visible part, gently, one by one,
The shape of you took years to submerge,
Beneath an eternal spread of stone pine.
mary desmond