“How goes the night, boy?…” by Michael Hartnett
by Steven McCabe
The night before Patricia’s funeral in 1951
I stayed up late talking to my father.
How goes the night, boy?
The moon is down:
Dark is the town
In this nightfall.
How goes the night, boy?
Soon is her funeral
Her small white burial.
She was my three-years child,
Her honey hair, her eyes
Small ovals of thrush-eggs.
How goes the night, boy?
It is late: lace
At the window
Blows back in the wind.
How goes the night, boy?
Oh, my poor white fawn!
How goes the night, boy?
It is dawn.
Michael Hartnett (1941-1999) is an award winning poet from County Limerick, Ireland. Poem courtesy of Niall Hartnett.
poemimage 
I like this one, Steven. Such a sad and beautiful progression in the poem that you paced well with your images.
Thank you Jack. An emotional sequence of deeply expressed words summoning images…tough to deal with. You’re right – it’s all about the pacing. I tried to show a background or enveloping mood more than a depiction.
wow — especially the last stanza and image (and the rhyme of dawn and fawn) — tears your heart out!!
It’s true isn’t it, Ellen. Those words put you right there. In that place. Feeling. Thank you for your response.
Sequenced beautifully. There is an underwater feeling to some of these, night is like that at times…
Night and being carried away….thank you Karen…
I’ve been thinking about night being like underwater darkness…descending….but it doesn’t just descend does it….it deepens in shades…dry oceans of light….great imagery Karen.
Very nicely done, I think.
Thank you.
Very nice Steven
Thanks very much James.
Well done Steven- a beautiful take on a sad time…
Thank you Niall. The poem so beautifully expresses this sadness. Thank you also for permission to work with your father’s poem.