Danny Boy Meets Tchaikovsky
There is hairy moss overtaking
the trees in the forest behind
that graveyard. As soon as the sun
sinks below the furthest hill, three
fairies and four leprechauns wearing
yellow shoes with brass buttons leap
from the twisted roots. They hide when
it’s light because they hate humans
who make fun of their tiny faces and tilted
ears, so they squat in the peat during the day.
Consequently, when they emerge from daybeds
damp as mushrooms, their hair is soily and smells
like musty cabbages. Can you see them spinning?
They don’t dance wildly; instead, they waltz,
a solemn homage to ancestors that gave
them life. Then they carve symbolically silly
messages—Gadzooks, umber cameleopard!—in the mortar
between the stones of the crumbling Glendalough.
