Anois teacht an tsamhraidh
Le Dymphna Lonergan
Anois, teacht an tsamhraidh
san Astráil theas
braithfidh mé uaim na scamaill-
An ceann sin úd ar chlé sa spéir ghlan,
na cinn eile ar dheis ar thóir a chéile,
ag éalú ón ghaoth dofheicthe.
Ach braithfidh mé uaim thar aon cheo eile,
scamaill roimh bháisteach,
scamaill cruachta ard ar a chéile
mar chóin uachtar reoite,
nó cístí sraithe bainise,
an bán,
an liath,
an dubh,
nó chaisleáin ghainimh tógtha ag leanaí
nach bhfeiceann
an tubaiste
atá
le teacht.
Now, with the coming of summer
Now, with the coming of summer
in South Australia,
I will miss the clouds –
That one on the left in the clear sky,
the others on the right
in pursuit of each other,
escaping the invisible wind.
But I will miss above all others, clouds before rain,
clouds stacked high like ice cream cones
or a tiered wedding cake –
the white
the grey
the black
or like sand castles built by children
who don’t see
the disaster
that is
to come.
Dymphna Lonergan is a South Australian based bilingual writer of Irish short stories and poetry.
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Mar gheall ar ghrá do chlabhtaí
Le Julie Breathnach-Banwait
Níl i spéir gan scamall ach scéal gan focal ar bhileog fholamh. Gan gluaiseacht ná rince ná clabhtaí ag cosaíocht ná ag toirneáil trasna na léaslíne, gan puchóidí leathana ag damhsa ná ag corraí. Na coirpigh úd a bhíonn ag straoisaíl is ag sciotaíl is ag réiteach don díle mhór. Gan caraictéar spraíúil, cnocáin chadáis chúracha, gnóthach mar a bheadh lámhacán linbh, á mbrú óna chéile, ag tónacán sa spéir mar gur chlós súgartha é.
Cím iad, ag foluain is ag cúbadh thar chloigeann Kunanyi, ag tabhairt foscadh dá mullach maol le caipín meireang, á cur trína chéile lena gceo, is í ina suí faoina gcaille, faoi lása a n-áilleachta, is iad torrach le lán broinne báistí, mar a bheadh úth na mbó roimh bhleán, is iad ag deifriú chun breith is pléascadh.
Níl bhaineann spéir ghorm gáire ná gol, ach suíonn sí balbh mar leabhar gan bileog.
For the love of clouds
A cloudless sky is but an empty story on a blank page. No movement or shift of dancing cloud scurrying and hastily careering across horizons, no white blister clumps hugging and caressing. No menacing and sniggering culprits preparing to soak and cool. No playful characters, like pavlova, foaming, busy like toddlers scuttling, shuffling and coercing one another in powered movement, in the playground of the sky.
I see them cowering and hovering over Kunanyi, sheltering her northernmost tip with a flat cap of meringue, descending, fuzzying her judgement as she sits veiled under their lace of beauty, their creamy deep grey peaks of mallow melting over her head, charged and pregnant with bellyfuls of rain, contracting and hurrying for birth.
Blue skies neither laugh nor cry, but sit still, like empty stories.
For the love of clouds has previously been published in the anthology Oystercatcher 1, by 5island Press, Australia.
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MAY DAY PROPHECIES 1947
Michael Boyle
The question I am always asked: why did I come to Newfoundland at all?
When I look back, think it all through, there was no way around the fact I
could ever control my fate or destiny in life. That said, some suggest that
Newfoundland chose me.
And they say I was nearly three years old when Maggie Mc Donagh, the
old gypsy woman from Connemara warmed herself by the blazing turf fire
in our old, thatched house which was perched on a hilltop at the end of a
long winding lane overlooking the moss lands of Drummuck, County
Derry.
My mother took all Maggie’s tin cans filled them full of ‘tay’, sugar, milk,
butter and gooseberry jam. Maggie looked down at me and spoke.
“What tiny little hands? I don’t know what this little boy will do
but he doesn’t have the hands of a farmer. Oh, Thanks Mam. Blessings of
God be upon you.”
But the clincher came when Maggie was about to close the half door, and
she spotted that golden curl atop of my blazing, red, curly hair that our
neighbour Mary Mc Caughey always mentioned to my mother.
“This child is so special; he will be a traveller and roam from his native
home of Ireland to some foreign land so far, far away.”
My mother’s eyes followed her, etched in pain like a stab to her heart. She
watched Maggie fade away slowly in the white, grey fog among the
brambles down the old moss lane.
Michael Boyle is a native of Lavey, Derry, Ireland. His poems have appeared in the The Antigonish Review, Dalhousie Review, Tinteán and New Ulster Writing. He lives in St John’s New Foundland, where he conducts a historical walking tour and has recently published a memoir On New Turf about his life in Ireland and in Newfoundland.
See here for a brief overview of his book by Tinteán’s Dymphna Lonergan.
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Tinteán 