Marathon — for Beckett

by Gerard Grealish

Though you have just run half
of what will be before you three weeks from now
and you are still, on this long distance
call catching your breath, you want
nothing more, so you say,
than that balance that brings to breath
a certain peace.

I can only imagine
the rhythm of your breathing like mine
when I ran so many miles less so many
years ago and a crow, spooked
by the sight of me and the small thunder
of my feet, cawed its way out

of a tree
and the blackness of itself
into the dawn.