From “A First Glimpse of Ireland”

Dylan Brennan

on a winter evening eyes see furthest 
to a hummock of mist on horizon 

to a kneeling giant    a U-shaped valley 
glacial moraine of gravel & clay   

to a knowing tide    the noise of the flood 
a surge of foam to cover us all 

to shell-sand that slowly accumulates 
in abandoned ridges of lazybeds 

to a broken landscape
exposed rock    avian vectors of birch 

evaporating ocean    a chain of islets 
to meadowsweet softened by drizzle

the fossilized needles of a monkey puzzle 
to coniferous patches of dark 

to a herd of stars coaxed from a river  
a very black thing at the edge of a sward

hazel saplings densely clustered 
fertilizing strips of dried seaweed 

to a rotting wolf in a field of clover 
a hedgerow in winter    the production of dust

to forests cleared of their greatest wood 
archipelagos drowned by the melting of ice 

to a crow on the brink of a cliff without wrinkle
ripples on the surface of a lake 

to an outburst of fish    hundreds of salmon 
a fruitful harbour entered through song

Copyright © 2025 by Dylan Brennan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 9, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

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about this poem

“I spent September 2024 at the Residencia Literaria 1863 in A Coruña, a beautiful port city in Galicia, home to the only still functioning Roman lighthouse in the world. According to Milesian legend, it was at the top of a tower in this same location that Ireland was seen for the first time. I wanted to create this vision for myself. I wanted to see my island, my country, with a fresh eye. Instead of contemplating it at one specific moment, I wanted to create a long exposure image, one that captures a sense of deep, geological time.”
—Dylan Brennan

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