The Shadow

Would lope behind him up the mountains
Whistling a tune or resting, hands on hips,
And stroll with him through fields of waist-high wheat
Listening to his distracted murmurings;
It sat beside him on the rain-drenched boat
That reared up, whale-like, on the lake, and sang
A song of comfort only he could hear;
He could not see it in the starlit garden
But it was kneeling there, with palms raised up.
When he was executed on the hill
It merged into the shadow of the tree
The stormlight cast across the face of earth,
Waiting until the spirit left his body;
And in the silence of the place of tombs
When he shone like a thousand burning candles
It had already gone back home
To join the dark beyond the light, to wait
For him, its earthly shadow, to return.

James Harpur’s fifth collection journeys into realms seen and unseen, ranging from the landscapes of Ireland to the visionary realms of the mystics. Through the finely textured music of his poems, he explores emotional and spiritual intimacies while keeping a sharp observant eye on the everyday world.

In Part One, death and alienation inform poems about the war-ravaged monastery of Monte Cassino, a churchyard ghost, the sacred site of Gougane Barra and a ‘leper’s squint’. Part Two moves to a more ethereal dimension with lyrics about mystics and heightened states of being.

Angels and Harvesters displays both human tenderness and an otherworldly wonder, as Harpur continues his quest to reconcile the complexities of the human condition with a deep-seated spiritual longing.