Becoming Anne Bradstreet

It happens again As soon as I take down her book and open it. I turn the page. My skies rise higher and hang younger stars. The ship's rail freezes. Mare Hibernicum leads to Anne Bradstreet's coast. A blackbird leaves her pine trees And lands in my spruce trees. I open my door on a Dublin street. Her child/her words are staring up at me: In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find. We say home truths Because her words can be at home anywhere— At the source, at the end and whenever The book lies open and I am again An Irish poet watching an English woman Become an American poet.