Poem a Day #6

Everything is Going to be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

Derek Mahon, from Selected Poems

For a few months in 1998 time became slower. Hours dragged, unrecognisable. Days were interminable, everything was colourless. I was terrified that this was what life really was like. My hands shook all the time and I didn’t know why.

It didn’t suddenly get better. But I remember how, little by little, small patches of colour began to spot the world. This poem by Derek Mahon was one of them. I copied it out and stuck in on the wall of my student bedroom. I learned it off by heart. And one day when I wasn’t paying attention, my hands grew steady again.