Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin – Three Poems

Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin grew up in the parish of Carna in the Connemara Gaeltacht. She is currently living and working in Galway city as a social worker and psychotherapist. She has had work previously published in Emerge Literary Journal, Apercus Quarterly and Boyne Berries.

 

This Place

I met you in Summer’s tall heat
when flowers
cast velvet gloves
towards the sky
birds nestled in thickened leaves.
The world
fat with abundance.

The first time I told you my name
you turned it
in your mouth
over and over again
each syllable
glistened
exotic patches on your sweetened tongue.

When autumn trees showed their fires
horizons kindled bright red.
Every story
I ever wanted to tell
I told.

Winter is here now
and the leaves have gone
my frosty steps
sound some fearful loneliness.
The world catches its breath
as I pass
this place
that once dazzled
now crackles
in my hands.

 

Good Friday

The afternoon very still
in one small corner of the sky
as I chase butterflies
among haystacks
their wings slipping through my fingers
like mercury spilling from spoons.
I stop
a pistol shot
three o’clock
The priest said
Jesus died on the cross
I listen…
no swans keen
any song of contrition.
My play continues
the garden of Gethsemane
closed for another year.

 

Message

Go out into the world
with fire in your pocket
tissues
like little deaths
carry them with you.
Folded love letters
soaked in rain
a country well
vast and
brilliant.

Go out into the world
with that forgotten song
a penny
a sweet ripened pear.

Go out into the world
with stars in your pocket
squadrons of earth
fresh grass
a prayer.

Go out into the world
carry hunger
in your pocket
carry night
carry day.
The moon
feathered
the word
trees.

Go out
with your imploring eye
your thousandth sigh
carry my heart
in an eavesdrop
this morning’s softened rain.

Go out
with dreams
your memories
carry a mountain
the river
a sea.
Just do it.

Go out into the world
and like that
let your ancestors
breath their last
through you.