Richard W. Halperin, born 1943 in Chicago, holds dual U.S.-Irish nationality, and lives in France. His poetry is published by Salmon (five collections) and by Lapwing (twenty shorter collections). The most  recent Salmon is All the Tattered Stars: Selected & New Poems, from which ‘Now, Mother, What’s the Matter?’ was Poem of the Week in The Guardian, 19 January 2026. His most recent Lapwings (both June 2026) are Silk Threads and Some Walk with Sticks.

 

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Bluebell Field     

After a painting by Stanley Royle in the National Gallery of Ireland

 

The goose girl crosses the bluebell meadow,

     she blank in her thoughts, basket swinging on her arm,

 

geese ahead, beside, behind, all going forward through the

      dappled bluebells.

 

What do you think of it, you, bluebell?

 

She opens her hands, closes them, opens them, watches the geese, 

     watches the path she is making in between the dream she is having.

 

Where are you in this, you, bluebell?

 

A girl on her way to where girls are on their way to,

     in this case to an age where there are no more goose girls,

 

to a meal which does not (yet) consist of goose,

     to a house where everyone knows her name.

 

Does anyone know your name, you, bluebell?

 

So many others of you to make a meadow, so many others of you 

     to wave in dappled light,

 

so many others of you, will they miss you when she crushes you 

     with her light step, 

 

will she feel even a little in her dreamy head the concussion of blue

     that was (for you) a little door to where you are now, 

 

you, bluebell?

 

Light is sometimes a flower when there is no more flower, 

     bluebell.