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There will be a Talking by MICHAEL HARTNETT

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<i> From "Contemporary Irish Poetry," an anthology, edited by Peter Fallon and Derek Mahon (Penguin: $7.95, paper). Michael Hartnett was born in 1941 in County Limerick and now lives in Dublin. </i>

There will be a talking of lovely things

there will be cognizance of the seasons,

there will be men who know the flights of birds,

in new days there will be love for women:

we will walk the balance of artistry.

And things will have a middle and an end,

and be loved because being beautiful.

Who in a walk will find a lasting vase

depicting dance and hold it in his hands

and sell it then? No man on the new earth

will barter with malice nor make of stone

a hollowed riddle: for art will be art,

the freak, the rare no longer commonplace:

there will be a going back to the laws.

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