The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by William Greenway

Maud Gonne                        

Because of the flame of my hair,

my long lovely legs,

and my torrid temper,

men said I was a struck match,

always ready to burn that Ireland,

not into ashes, but smelted down

till the dross of the English landlords,

the greedy merchants, and the priests

could be poured off, leaving

only the gold of the Old Ireland—

the women chieftains, the Faery, the Sidhe—

of the Otherworld.

So I was a hellion, could dance,

or fight, any man off his feet,

but never marry the one—

poor  persistent Willie Yeats—

who asked me over and over

our whole lives.

My soul mate, he said.

I married instead a patriotic

lout, probably because I knew

the doltish hothead would get himself

hanged sooner or later,

as he did.

Dead, now, too, I still see

Ireland torn,

as if all I did counted for naught,

almost as if I'd never been born.

The only place I'm remembered

is in his poems, where,

young, beautiful, and forever fierce

I fight to save the world

all over again.