In memoriam II: The draper
“The town is dead
Nothing but the wind
Howling down Main Street
And a calf bawling
Outside The Fiddlers”
My mother’s words, not mine
In a letter, kept in a drawer
These long years
She had a way with words
My mother
That’s why they came
The faithful of her following
Leaning in to her over the counter
For an encouraging word
Or the promise of a novena
Long before we had
Local radio
Our town had my mother
Harbinger of the death notices
And the funeral arrangements
Bestower of colloquial wisdom
Bearer of news on all things
Great and small
Who was home
And who hadn’t come
Who had got the Civil Service job
And by what bit of pull
The Councillor’s niece
Smug in her new navy suit
Oblivious to the circulating countersuit
“Would you ever think of coming home?”
Her words would catch me
Unawares
Lips poised at the edge
Of a steaming mug
Igniting a spitfire
Of resentment each time
Then draping me for days
I’d wear it like a horsehair shirt
All the way back
Until the sunshine and the hustle
Had worn it threadbare
This extra bit of baggage
In every emigrant’s case
Their mother’s broken heart
I never thought to ask her
“Would you want me to…?
So I could look out at the rain
Circumnavigating the empty street
And shiver at the wind
Whipping in under the door…?”
I don’t miss that question now
On my annual pilgrimage ‘home’
My father never asks it
Like me, I know he feels it
Hanging in the air
Alongside her absence
I miss my mother
And her way with words
(first published in The Irish Times, 31 January 2016)
Credos
A penny in a new purse
(That it may never be empty)
The Child of Prague left out all night
(To bring a dry day for the First Holy Communion)
Never pick a flower from a fairy fort
(It will bring down a curse)
Never speak ill of the dead
(No matter how wicked they were, God rest their immortal soul)
A spit on the hand to seal the deal
A prayer to St Anthony to find something lost
To St Jude in the case of lost hope
Novenas on your knees if there’s no hope at all
(Because miracles can happen – just look at Auntie Marie’s neighbour’s first cousin)
Never open an umbrella in the house
(It will stunt your growth)
Eat your crusts
(They’ll make your hair curl, or straight if it’s curly)
Don’t make that face
(If the wind turns, you’ll be stuck with it)
Red and green should never be seen
Never wear shiny shoes with a skirt
Only eat pork if there’s an ‘r’ in the month
Don’t change a clout till May is out
Waste not, want not
Never gift a knife to a friend
(It will cut your ties)
If a coal falls from the fire, a stranger is coming
Don’t believe everything you hear
Seeing is believing
The rules we lived by
Before we had internet or mobile phones or colour tv
Before we knew
For better or worse
That no matter how complicated it might have seemed
Life would never be that simple
Ever again
Because
The wind did turn
Leaving us to face the ugliness
And the rain came down
The wicked were blessed
Hope was lost
Our growth stunted
Our hair curled and uncurled
As colours clashed
And on reflection
A strange underbelly was revealed
We consumed in excess
When we knew it was wrong
Changing everything
Piling wasteful want
Onto wanton waste
Knives out
Ties cut
Sparks flew
Strangers fell
As we followed the herd
Saw too much
Believed too well
So I am turning back
To times past
When all was lost
And my novena is this
Today, just for today
Let everyone
In the whole wide world
Wake
With eyes coloured
Only by love
With hands and minds
Able
Only to be kind
Because miracles can happen
Still
(shortlisted for the Cuirt New Writing Poetry Prize 2017; first published in Tools for Solidarity poetry pamphlet, June 2017)
Between ebb and flow
Mist rolls off moss-green hills
Where wind-wild ponies thunder
Manes flying as they chase
Their seaward brothers
Locked in eternal contest
On this deserted grey mile
Past the little stone churchyard
Long-forgotten graves spilling
Stones onto the sodden bog
A soft snore from behind
My two angels sleeping
Thirteen thousand miles
From all they have ever known
Running our own race
To make the best
Of spaces like this
A rainbow rises along the horizon
And I recognise her
Come for my mother
Locked in her own
Immortal struggle
The sister returned
So I know it won’t
Be long now
And I cry a little at
The unbearable beauty
Of these diastoles
When we are all
Suspended
Here in a heartbeat
Between heaven and earth
(All poems © copyright Anne Casey 2017)