Hepialus humuli
Its wings leave smudges on
the windowpane, thin dust rising
as it butts the glass, the moon
behind it and my lamp within.
I have been thinking too much
of my mother, gone these twenty years,
imagine she’s come back to visit me.
What is it you want? Aren’t you dead
long enough to leave me now,
to take your rest? I turn
the light out, watch the creature
crawl, pause, crawl – looking,
looking where to go next. I lie
and let it watch me too, wait
to see who’s first to blink.
I think of her old coat
that smelled of comfort, dust and
Sundays – grey fur sleek as moonstone,
downy as the small grey hen
this morning at the market. I perch
restless on a varnished pew,
my cheek afloat on her sleeve,
listen for the sky’s deep breath, hear
the hiccupping sea pour bucket-
fuls of water on the shore.
© Geraldine Mitchell, in Mountains for Breakfast (Arlen House, 2017)
Picture 10940980, illustration in The Naturalist’s Pocket Magazine; or, Complete Cabinet of the Curiosities and Beauties of Nature (1798-1802), image copyright Mary Evans / Florilegius
Irish poet Geraldine Mitchell has published four collections: World Without Maps (2011), Of Birds and Bones (2014), Mountains for Breakfast (2017) and, most recently, Mute/Unmute (2020). She is published by Arlen House. Geraldine won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2008 and was the overall winner in the inaugural Trócaire-Poetry Ireland poetry competition in 2012. Most recently, she was placed second in the 2021 Troubadour International Poetry Prize. Widely published in journals in Ireland and the UK, she has also frequently been broadcast on RTÉ radio and appeared in The Irish Times and The Examiner newspapers. Having worked for many years in France and Spain, she now lives on the Co. Mayo coast. www.geraldinemitchell.net