‘And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul … ?’
W. B. Yeats, Meditations in Time of Civil War, IV
What might you have foreseen? The way that rain
teemed all autumn on the ragged elm
so fields were flooded and the river rose
on your precious acre of stony ground?
How water crept round the ancient tower,
and swept old trees in the eyes of the bridge,
immersed the road, welled up the winding stair
so that each intake of breath was a magnet
for a river in spate and the torrent flowing in
the chamber window met waters flowing out?
That table, of trestles and board where you wrote,
a fire of turf in the open grey hearth:
and know whatever flourish and decline
these stones remain their monument and mine.
Â
Â
© Catherine Phil MacCarthy, from The Invisible Threshold, published here by kind permission of Dedalus Press, Dublin, 2012
Picture 11969887, photograph, circa 1925, image copyright Mary Evans / Everett Collection
Catherine Phil MacCarthy has published five collections of poetry (and a novel), most recently Daughters of the House (2019) and The Invisible Threshold (2012), both with Dedalus Press, Dublin. Her poems arise often from wonder and the quest to understand, explore the primal power of attachment and desire, and deliver experiences of what it is to be human. They observe our connection to the world around us, and the threatened natural environment. She received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry, and is a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review. She was born in Co. Limerick, and has lived in Dublin since 1987. www.catherinephilmaccarthy.com
Choose PDF type:
