WHITE HAWTHORN IN THE WEST OF IRELAND I drove west in the season between seasons. I left behind suburban gardens. Lawmowers. Small talk. Under low skies, past splashes of coltsfoot I assumed the hard shyness of Atlantic light and the superstitious aura of hawthorn. All I wanted then was to fill my arms with sharp flowers, to seem, from a distance, to be part of that ivory, downhill rush. But I knew, I had always known the custom was not to touch hawthorn. Not to bring it indoors for the sake of the luck such constraint would forfeit -- a child might die, perhaps, or an unexplained fever speckle heifers. So I left it stirring on those hills with a fluency only water has. And, like water, able to redefine land. And free to seem to be -- for anglers, and for travelers astray in the unmarked lights of a May dusk -- the only language spoken in those parts. -- Eavan BOLAND, "Outside History, selected poems - 1980-1990, " (Norton/1990).