Dan Murphy

Mac Tíre Deireanach na hÉireann

Aimsíonn na cúnna é 
gar d’fhuil na gcaorach 
ag péinteáil an fhéir.

Tá sé ag siúl go mall i gcruth ocht 
agus taispeánann sé a chuid fiacla 
agus ní chaitheann sé ach drisíní

agus níl aon chiontacht aige. 
Siúlann sé roimh a scáth.
Taobh le haolchloch agus driseacha

a línealann na cuibhrinn.
Aithníonn trí bholadh
a chríoch. Tá sé ag breathnú

i súil raidhfil
in am geansaithe agus uain,
ar thalamh atá chomh lom go bhfeiceann sé

anois an fharraige níos faide uaidh.
Siúlann sé ar luaithreach casarnach
agus diúltaíonn sé, cosúil le ceo, an fál seo.

The Last Wolf of Ireland

The hounds find him 
by the sheep’s blood 
painting the grass.

He paces in figure eights 
and bares his teeth
and wears nothing but burrs

and bears no guilt.
He walks before his shadow 
along limestone and briars

that line the paddocks.
He knows by smell
his place. He holds a gaze

with the eye of a rifle
in the time of sweaters and lamb 
on land so clear-cut he can see

an ocean rise beyond the plots. 
He treads the ash of understory. 
He refuses, like fog, this hedge.

Dan Murphy teaches at Boston University and Waring School. He recently held the honor of Writer-in-Residence at Phillips Academy Andover. He was named a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow at Boston University and a Grace Abernethy Scholar in Creative Writing at Emory University. His poems have appeared in several national and international journals. His debut collection, Estate Sale, won the 2024 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry and was published by the University of Utah Press in 2025. The poems here, Mac Tíre Deireanach na hÉireann / The Last Wolf of Ireland, were first published in Terrain and also appear in Estate Sale. He served as an editor for Trasna, from 2021-2024. Dan’s website is dmurphy.online.