Ron Whitehead

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

by W. B. Yeats & Ron Whitehead

please arise, both of you, and all your kin, and go now,
and go to Innisfree (not that anyone who lives there will want you),
and a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
nine bean-rows i doubt you'll have there, nor a hive for the honey-bee,
and please live alone in your bee-loud glade (i doubt the bees will have you).

and you might possibly (but i doubt it) have some peace there,
for peace comes dropping slow (you've sundered peace for millions),
dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket (i'd love
to see Queen & President playing cricket) sings;
there midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow (The Pope's
amethyst ring: get on your knees & kiss it!),
and evening full of the linnet's wings.

i hope you arise and go soon, asap, please go now, for always
night and day and day and night if you listen (which i'm confident
you will never listen) you will hear lake water lapping with low sounds
by the shore; while you stand in your palace and your white house
or at the kentucky derby along your pathetic way, or yes on the gray
floor of your limo or private jet or private yacht or private ranch,
you never ever hear the sound of nature or the real people of planet
mother earth in the deep heart's core.

Copyright (c) 2007 Ron Whitehead