For Seamus Heaney
Your ‘lofted arm a swivel like a flail’
by Michael Boyle
First Monday of the month
Bellaghy fair
We herded our bellowing bullocks there.
Saw ruddy complexion of your father
trademark uniform of stick, brown boots
with a wad of white fives
in his arse pocket.
A real ‘dealing’ man
My brother Sean and you played
cowboys and Indians in O’Neill’s cattle yard.
You listened to the shouts
of Hutchinson the Maghera felt rope man
at the stall on Main Street.
After we sold our baistes
my father and yours
had a bottle of stout in Breslin’s Bar.
Ah would it be nice
to have had a super 8 Video
of that day?
Back in 54 McGinley’s cattle truck
moved your family furniture
from Moss bawn to the Wood
in Tamlaghduff on the Lavey parish border
and as the crow flies only a town land
away from my hedge school in Dreenan.
Here too, we had had frogspawn jars
and catkin tails in vases on the windowsill.
You didn’t fall on the first hurdle of life at Beechers Brook
you passed the 11 plus
and became a scholarship boy.
One July morning before
you went to Queen’s University
my mother met your mother
at Ulster Bus Station in Magherafelt.
She said, ‘Oh Seamus has been to Queen’s
bought all his books and read them all
before term starts’.
Already you had made your mark.
Often you were a ‘fear a ti’cfor ceilis
at the Wolfe Tones GAA football club.
Imagine your commands to the dancers
‘Get ready’ for the Siege of Ennis
Walls of Limerick and The Waves of Tory.
You were a talk show host.
I saw you with that hand microphone
at Bellaghy Sports.
In the whirling stour you gave
a stroke-by-stroke commentary
describing two men from medieval days threshing barley sheaves
with flails swinging high in the sky
to an eternal rhythm.
Archival moment in my memory
of a time and place
that no longer exists.
In 63 I arrived at the College
grounds of the Ranch in west Belfast.
I didn’t make the cut
for the PE program. Instead
was moved into your English Lit class.
You never walked
but strode up the classroom
in a black chalky gown
two sizes too small for you.
Always wore shirt and tie
and those brown and bluish suits
and a boyish laughing grin.
Oh, and trailing behind you
that battered brown leather briefcase.
Back then as a callow youth
how could I know
what you might grow in prominence.
Once you threw a challenge
to us South Derry students
‘Stop being Philistines’
as we could not describe
any of the merits of poetry.
Oh, you did read my poem Erica
about white cotton growing on the moss.
You were the big Poet fellah from Bellaghy
with black hair and leather elbow patches
on your tweed sports coat.
You observed my first teaching practice
of a Primary Five Art class
at St Tereasa’s school Glen Road. Belfast.
I made a real cat’s breakfast of it.
I jumped into the lesson
I wasn’t aware of the noise, chatter and din.
Those five students in the front rows seemed interested.
I heard afterwards thirty others
were swinging from the rafters.
Running and vaulting
like performers at Duffy’s circus.
But after class you smiled. ‘Mickey.’
You paused. Waited, and gave voice.
‘You must always let the silence speak.’
Today. I wait reflect and pause the silence.
As prophet, you often quoted Yeats
‘Irish poets learn your trade’.
Free writing
with your vinyl LP of Beethoven’s concerto number 5 in ‘The Play Way.’
Every Easter you gave all first-year students
a part of the Passion section of the medieval Chester cycle of mystery plays.
We had to plough through Middlemarch and Edgeworth’s, Preludes. Antigone and Shakespeare.
You loved Wordsworth Hopkins. Eliot, Milton and Keats.
And above all you adored Patrick Kavanagh.
Told us about D.H Lawrence
but we were too scared to read him
as it was still on the index list.
I remember the day you brought to class Woodhams Smith new book on the Famine.
We heard you read local poets
McNiece, Larkin, Rodgers. Told us of
Hewitt’s ox and goat metaphor
for Northern Ireland.
In the college dining hall
you chatted with Michael Laverty
your headmaster
from St Thomas on the Whiterock Road.
I wonder if Michael told you
of the irate parent
who was coming to see him
and Laverty locked himself in the washroom.
Met you at a poetry conference in London
and you told me that Canada
is the most beautiful country in the world.
But you did whisper to me
something else as well
which I will keep private.
That late August 2013 weekend
when you died and I watched
the All-Ireland hurling final
at Croke park Dublin. I wondered
if ever again we would have
a minute’s silence for a poet.
Your ‘lofted arm a swivel like a flail.’
Michael Boyle from Maghera, County Derry, lives in Newfoundland.
An tAmharc Deireannach
le Colette Ní Ghallchóir
An tAmharc Deireannach
Bhéarfaidh mé an tamharc
deireannach thart, adúirt sí
ar Pháirc an Droma ag
titim anuas ón Scréig
ar an Abhainn Fhia,
‘s í ag chogarnaigh le Cruach an Airgid.
Luífinn anseo go suan
adúirt sí
ach caithfidh mé a bheith
curtha leisean
i mbéal na trá.
The Last Look
I will look for the last time
around, she said
on the ridge field
falling down from the scree
on the Owenea river
whispering by Silverhill
I would lie here and sleep
she said
but I must be
buried with him
at the mouth of the strand.
Translated by Máire Mhac an tSaoi
Colette Ní Ghallchóir is an Irish language poet. See February’s ‘Agallaimh le scríbhneoirí na gaeilge/Interviews with Irish language writers’ for Tinteán’s interview with the poet.
Dúchas
Le Seán Ó Coistealbha
Ar chuir tú crann
ariamh a chomrádaí
a d’fhás bradach
ar an sliabh
a bheadh
mar dhídean
ón ngaoth aniar
do’d chomhluadar do’d thí?
Ar bhain tú barr
ar phortach
do bhean’s gasúir
le do thaobh
a bhéarfadh teas
do’d theaghlach
níos faide amach sa mbliain?
Ar chas tú fód
i dtalamh bán
le iomaire a shníomh
nó a dhul ar thóir
na feamainne
sa gcladach
feistithe le cliabh?
Ar chaith tú dorú
sa muráite
ar thóir ar bhalach
a bhainfeadh an chraobh
as gach a maraíodh
ar an mbaile roimhe sin
ó tosaíodh ar an maíomh?
Ar shúil tú slí
na farraige
ag cuntas ainm
leac ’s cloch
ag beathú
do chuid brionglóidí
gan gá
le bia nó deoch?
Sin iad ceirdeanna
do shinsir
do dhúchas
i bhfad siar
láidreoidh siad
do bheatha
do na cleachtais seo
bí fior.
Heritage
by Seán Ó Coistealbha
Have you e’er sown
a tree my friend
that grew feral
on the moors
that would serve
for shelter
from the west wind
for your kin, you and yours?
Have you e’er skinned
a bog’s sod
your woman, your children
at your side
that would serve
as heat for homesteads
When bitter colds did rise?
Have you curled
a sod in fallow fields
ridges for to weave,
or go to search
in shores of seaweed
armed only with
a creel?
Have you cast a line
from shore banks
to lure that better trout
that those long line
of fisherfolk
could only
dream about?
Have you e’er paced
the sea route
noting names of
rock and slab
nourishing
your dreams
with drink nor food
not had?
These are the practices
of your lineage
your heritage
of past
they will scaffold
you in life
to such practice
be steadfast.
As an Spidéal, Contae na Gaillimhe do Sheán Ó Coistealbha. Tá dhá shaothar filíochta curtha i gcló aige, Dideán (2002) agus Stadhain (2012) agus ceann eile le teacht go gairid. Ina fhear óg chaith sé cúpla bliain ar imirce san Astráil agus sa Nua Shealainn.
Seán Ó Coistealbha is from Spiddal, Co. Galway. He has published two volumes of poetry, Dideán (Shelter) in 2002 and Stadhain in 2012. He has a new collection forthcoming. He has lived in Australia and New Zealand as a young immigrant.
Listening to Dvorak
by Eda Hamilton
A wintery Saturday afternoon
cooking in my kitchen
making sticky date pudding
surrounded by Dvorak.
We visited his house
in Prague on a winter’s day.
The light there was
like today’s light
streaming through large windows
with his New World Symphony
filling the spaces.
He was a butcher’s son
I am a shoemaker’s daughter
He went to America
I came to Australia
We both suffered from homesickness.
He created beauty from
his loss and gave voice
to people like me
unable to voice
the sadness within.
Eda is a retired teacher living in Adelaide and is now a creative writer in both Irish and English. Eda was born in Dublin, and grew up in Edenderry, Co. Offaly. Her family emigrated to London when she was 15 and she worked in Lloyds Bank prior to her leaving for Adelaide in 1959. It was in Adelaide that she met her husband Brian Payne, a cellist. She has published poetry and short stories and written a memoir for her grandchildren about her early life in Ireland.
Tinteán 