Tá mo chroí istigh ionat By Veronica Eldredge

My heart is within you

tear streaming down
the hillside of your
soft brown face
induces silent screams:
of a small humanity
crying out to ourself

which is greater?
the rivers of your eyes,
or the ones you crossed
to be here?

tiny fingernails
scratching to stay
to feel the softness
of your lips even as
she is ripped away
from fathers’ shoulders,
when the body
is a home,
and no
other home exists?

her heart within you
stays
even as they
carry her away
from you,
your last kiss,
a promise
for more

your faces a caressed geography
above birdsong elevated minds
each hair a gift
a thought
a moment to adore you
a precious tendril of your existence;
eyes creased with seeing,
laughter, retinal dreaming

lips a resting place for your
spirit dome, your future kindness
a seed, nourished in this way,
your most important world.