Tinteán

by Méabh O’Leary

Irish-born Méabh O’Leary was prompted to write this poem about an abalone shell she found along the seashore on the Mornington Peninsula. ‘It reminds  me of my childhood  in Ireland, collecting shells from the strands and placing  them to my ear to hear the sea within.  Now as an adult in Australia, this shell I found symbolises that connection to memory and times past and those gone before me, and reminds me I am in a different landscape.’ 

Cluas Mhara

Inky black seaweed carpets the shore
Tangled, glistening on a moveable floor
Limpets, barnacles nest on domes
Driftwood floats silent, over white-capped foam

Strings of spaghetti curls, sea grass baskets
Scattered gemstones, buried treasure caskets
Mossy lace-mounds, stacked then collapsed
Webbed footprints, etched by time elapsed
 

Sea scents waft, through whispering reeds
Breezes paint pictures, seaside daisies blow seeds
A pendant of opal clouds, azure ocean and sky
Luminous and shimmering as wild swans fly by
 

An empty shell, marooned on a boulder
Iridescent and fine, opaque like powder
Holes like eye sockets carved in a mask
Tumbleweeds trapped within its casque
 

Its rainbow lip ridged and pursed to speak,
Soft and cool when cradled to cheek,
Mother of pearl polished, with featherlike touch
Hands clasped together, cloaked in satin and ruched
 

The sea ears murmur, words of comfort and calm
Of memory and dreaming,  from natures balm
Encased and sheltered, our beloved remain
in sand shifts and tide flows, at peace beyond pain

Críoch

Méabh is Dublin born and bred. After graduating from the College of Marketing and Design in 1982 Méabh worked in London, Boston and Seville before arriving in Australia on a working holiday visa.  She returned to Australia to take up permanent residency and met her Australian husband with whom she now resides in Melbourne along with their three daughters.   Méabh presented  ‘Migratory Grief – The Silent Grief of Voluntary Migration’  at the Inaugural 1st Global Irish Diaspora Conference in Dublin in August 2018 as an Independent Scholar. (see also https://tintean.org.au/2018/03/06/migratory-grief-the-silent-grief-of-voluntary-migration/

Méabh has been a speaker at BrigidFest in 2016 in Melbourne on ‘Cumann na mBan in the GPO in 1916’ and has been published in the Irish Times on the Women of 1916. Méabh is currently studying The Visual Arts  and writes short stories and poetry. The themes of migration and the beauty of nature inspire her work.