Máire Morrissey-Cummins lives in a village by the sea on the outskirts of Dublin. She loves nature, her garden, her cat Athena, paints watercolours daily, writes poetry, walks and hikes, enjoys dinner with girlfriends and travelling with her husband, Jim. Retirement is a great time of life. It continues to be an exploration, a search for a greater understanding of the world we inhabit and people we meet.

Solstice Eve

(For Ann)

A lip of light extends
long and low above the headland.
It illuminates your house on the cliff.
Window panes flash silver
on this Solstice Eve
and I wonder how your children are,
and are they coming home for Christmas.

Memories of you flood my mind,
times past, when we were young mothers,
your newsy letters from Letterkenny and Cork,
I kept them you know
for three score years
in a file under my bed.

I wonder what might have been
had I lived nearby.
It was a terrible misunderstanding you know.
in exile for years
until the death notice
in the newspaper.

I glance to the headland,
clouds drift and merge
a curtain of grey descends,
and there is only rain
and the surge of crashing waves on rocks.

Vulnerability

Unsheltered,
by the garden gate
a bevy of crocuses open blooms wide
to sip on the morning dew.

and I think of the heartbreak
in the silent forest,
where new leaves are being birthed,
over and over,
the vulnerability,
and suffering
to bring us this breathtaking beauty
of Spring,

For The Galway Review 8 -Printed Edition