Leaving Ireland and taking a borrowed book with me...

My chef friend let me borrow the book Notes by Irish poet Peter van de Kamp. The chef doesn't know it yet, but I just don't see how I can part with this book, especially since I am leaving Ireland. I can't tell you what I think of the book as a whole because I keep getting stuck on the first poem. It has thumb smudges and Guinness droppings all over it. Check it out. Enjoy!


Return

If, on a sultry night,
You flutter past my porch
Into the light of my living,
I'll save you from the scalding.
I'll elbow the lighswitch off,
Face the moon,
Elbow french windows shut;
And hands still in prayer
Entombing your tremble
(sinuous as venial sins
flicking walls of the chapel
before their confession)
Will spread in supplication
For your dark flight.
And I? I'll go back in again,
Switch the light back on,
Read a book, maybe,
Or maybe watch TV.

-Peter van de Kamp