love eavan boland

"Dark falls on this mid-western town / where we once lived when myths collided."

Explanation: Boland recalls a distant, almost mythic time from her past, setting a tone of memory and loss.
Theme [Themes: Memory, Myth, Loss]: Through the blending of everyday life (“mid-western town”) with mythic imagery (“myths collided”), Boland suggests how past experiences take on larger-than-life significance in memory, making them sacred yet unreachable.
Personal Response: This opening immediately draws me into a world where ordinary and extraordinary coexist, reminding me how easily memory elevates even the hardest times into something almost sacred.

"love had the feather and muscle of wings / and had come to live with us, / a brother of fire and air."

Explanation: Boland personifies love as a living, breathing force with elemental power.
Theme [Themes: Love, Intensity, Transformation]: The vivid metaphor (“feather and muscle of wings,” “brother of fire and air”) makes love seem almost divine—something transient, physical, and transformative, suggesting that love during crisis was fierce and transcendent.
Personal Response: This description makes me think of moments when love feels bigger than you—beautiful but also fragile, something you can't hold onto forever.

"one of whom / was touched by death in this town / and spared"

Explanation: Boland reveals that their child came close to death but survived, anchoring the memory in real-life crisis.
Theme [Themes: Love, Loss, Memory]: By stating this so simply, Boland heightens the emotional weight behind the mythic imagery; it shows that the extraordinary intensity of their love was born from a real confrontation with mortality.
Personal Response: This makes my heart clench—it reminds me how easily love is magnified when life itself feels fragile and uncertain.

"Across our day-to-day and ordinary distances / we speak plainly. We hear each other clearly."

Explanation: Now, Boland describes the steady but less intense love of the present.
Theme [Themes: Love, Transformation]: The simple, clear syntax mirrors the plainness of their current relationship—steady, enduring, but missing the overwhelming passion they once knew.
Personal Response: These lines feel both reassuring and quietly sad—it makes me realise how even the deepest loves can settle into something quieter with time.

"Will we ever live so intensely again?"

Explanation: Boland directly asks if the passion and transcendence they once knew can ever return.
Theme [Themes: Memory, Longing, Loss of Intensity]: The directness of this rhetorical question captures the ache of nostalgia—the desperate human wish to re-enter a past emotional peak that can never truly be recovered.
Personal Response: This question resonates with me—it captures that haunting feeling when you know a moment was the high point of your life, and you're not sure if anything will ever match it again.

"But the words are shadows and you cannot hear me. / You walk away and I cannot follow."

Explanation: Boland imagines herself calling across time and memory to her husband, but he cannot hear her.
Theme [Themes: Memory, Love, Loss]: Her imagery of "words as shadows" and her inability to follow him emphasise the separation between past and present, showing that some experiences—and the intensity they brought—are truly irretrievable.
Personal Response: This ending leaves a hollow ache—it reminds me how deeply we can long for a time or a feeling we simply can’t get back, no matter how much we want t