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Image by Dylan Taylor/Unsplash, Public Domain Dedication (CC0).

Published

December 13, 2016

Sea Asters

Written and read by Michael Longley

I have got to know the fawn’s
Salt-marsh skeleton, abstract
Vertebrae and white ribs
In a puddle jellyfish fill
At spring tide, ghost-circles
Close to the sea asters’
Purple golden-hearted
Scruffy loveliness.

“Sea Asters” from Angel Hill by Michael Longley. Copyright © 2017 by Michael Longley. Published by Wake Forest University Press. Used with permission of the poet.

Listen to Michael Longley’s On Being interview, “The Vitality of Ordinary Things.”

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Michael Longley's photo.

Michael Longley has written more than 20 books of poetry including Collected Poems, Gorse Fires, The Stairwell and his most recent collection, The Candlelight Master. He was the professor of poetry for Ireland from 2007 to 2010 and is a winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. He was also the international winner of the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize — and that same year was honored with the Freedom of the City of Belfast.

Reflections

Sea Asters

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