FeastAuthor(s): Howard WrightSource: Irish University Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Autumn - Winter, 1999), p. 318Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25484819 .

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Howard Wright

Above the Clouds

The cabin lights dim as the inflight video screens

fall and lock into place.

Fierce cities divide like cells, and we aire warmly rucked in

by designer hostesses

for our 'comfort and safety' while a once-in-a-lifetime comet

hangs fire by its tail,

flame-yellow and blue, when we overfly a party of angels

having a cloud fight,

snow angels howling delighted,

beating their permafrost wings like vultures round a kill,

and locking haloes to bum

each other's face with a fistful

of vapour, all for that single

white feather of victory.

Feast

Over Armagh fields on this St. Stephen's Day,

through disputed and uneven sea-blue snow, we smuggle home (for there is no better way on this glorious feast of the big go-slow) the names Ussher, England, Wren and Raphael

because they sound so out of place at our table.

318

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