Tim Dwyer has recent and upcoming publications in The Stinging Fly, Boyne Berries, Revival and Skylight. He is a psychologist in a correctional facility and lives in the Hudson Valley of New York State. His mother was from Gort and his father was from the farm country near Loughrea. He recently returned to writing after many years. tjdwyer@frontiernet.net.
Three poems by Tim Dwyer
ANGEL ON EARTH
Mary O’Hara Irish Harpist and SingerI don’t always know
which memories are imagined.
Her songs were lullabies
rising from the family phonograph.
I hear them now
through a stack of losses,
feel the soothing
as only a child can
from the pure voice
of the beautiful girl
with the flowing hair
playing on her harp
the music of the air
before the tragedy
of her young poet’s death
before joining the sisterhood
and leaving this world
to seek the comfort of God.
ROAD TO GALWAY, 1949
for my father
He helped build this road-
a farmer, then soldier
then pick and shovel man
saving up his pay
for that boat ticket to America.
He shipped off
the same year
the Republic was born.
What freedom did he find
in his new world?
RAKING THE LEAVES
You would think I was a sea captain or a farmer, the way I monitor changes in the weather. No wind, but dark clouds threaten rain. Clear skies, but remnant gusts from the Virginia hurricane blow the leaves from their piles. Times like these I feel my father close by, in his 19th century world of horse and plough. The man of few words, the bartender who never took a drink. At his death, I find J&B in the cabinet unopened, a wedding present, from the time of George VI.
My lawn is far from the Gurtymadden farm. On my first visit, a gentleman on the train wrote my Gaelic name, handed it to me. Welcomed by my relatives, they told me it was my first time back, though they knew I had never been there. Walking the farm was my pilgrimage. Yes, it was my first time back.
Fifty years ago, my New York lawn was a cow pasture. Today, the farmers are receding, the trees are going bare. Houses here and in Gurtymadden sprout like mushrooms. Snow in tomorrow’s forecast, general all over Ireland and the Hudson Valley.
The Galway Review 