Removing the wind rock, unfastening the latch, I pass through
the wooden gate
and follow the lane that becomes a mown path skirting
the lavender-coloured potato fields
that slope down to the North Atlantic. No one else awake,
except the blackbird and its song.
This same path has appeared in different times and places,
in Wales, once, and on Cape Cod,
and that mist-filled dawn near Lissadell. Always the same
blue gate, the same slope, this dreamlike
feel in the waking day, like sleepwalking to the sea.
I have been here before.
Each time, it’s a kind of death, that can’t be helped.
Then walking back home to you, restored.
To you. As long as that is possible. As long as the sea is blue
and there are gates. And paths that lead both ways.
Theodore Deppe is the author of eight books of poems, most recently Impossible Blackbird (Arlen House, 2024). He has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and his poem "Lullaby Before Leaving" was one of four finalists for Poem of the Year in the 2023 Irish Book Awards. He lives in Connemara.
More work by Theodore Deppe
Tel: 028 7126 6946
Email: hueditor@theverbal.co
Verbal, Stable Lane and Mall Wall, Bishop Street Within, Derry/Londonderry, BT48 6PU
companyCopyright © 2026 Honest Ulsterman