Nuala O’Farrell is a late-emerging poet who has dedicated her life to both medicine and literature. Having worked as a General Practitioner, she now teaches “Narrative Medicine,” a field that beautifully marries her dual passions. Nuala finds inspiration in the hills of Connemara, where she and her late husband spent countless joyful days walking the mountains and cycling the bog roads of Galway. Her poem “The Last Sheep Farmer” was published online in the magazine “Gypsophila” last year, and “The Perfect Egg” was featured on Sunday Miscellany. Nuala’s latest work, “The Laird of Roundstone,” continues to showcase her poetic talent.

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Ballydehob.

(For my father.)

He could feel the loneliness,
Seeping,
Through the soles of his
Boots, as he trudged up the hill to the strange
Schoolhouse. He had been sent away,
He knew, for his own safety,
To the riddle of the hills behind
The town of Ballydehob.

Even the bullets of the Black and Tans
Through the windows at home,
And the screams
Of his mother, were better than this.
He sensed the Scally twins, catching up behind him,
Rugged mountainy men, even at the age of six,
With great hairy beasts
Of brothers.

He ran for his life into the‘Scoil Naisuinta’,
With its tall ceilings, and hop-scotch windows,
And the threatening line,
Of outside toilets, where your pooh, he knew,
Sank,
Straight down through a wooden hole,
Into the butter-black bog
Below.

How was his father, ‘Paddy Mor’?
The ‘Muinteoir’ asked him,
And how was he finding life inside?
And could he recite his nine times tables
By heart, and could he read the long word,
Written, in white chalk, on the blackboard?
You’re a good boy, ‘Paddy Beag,’he said.
‘Ana maith ar fad.’

He glanced over at the Scally twins,
Hunched
Over their inkwells,
Their jotters unblotted,
Their new nibs,
Untouched.

He meandered back, slowly,
To the house of his maiden aunt,
Kicking
The odd clod of turf,
With his new boots, and whistling
A tune from home,
From Ballydehob,
As the Scally brothers,
Passed.

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BRENT GEESE.

Every year
they return, to comfort
blind men
with guide-dogs,
joggers grasping the reluctant air,
women waiting, year in, year out,
for lovers
who may never come.

Children in wheelchairs
crane stiff necks
to return, their
honking greetings,
and tell, half-listening
parents, bed-time tales,
of wonder.

Old men pause,
their daily walk,
in triumph, at surviving,
yet another, bitter winter,
cocking peaky hats,
in defiance of
the migratory skies.

But young drivers,
waiting at traffic lights,
planning the text,
of their next
important meeting, beep
car horns, impatiently,
under an empty sky.

---

The Company of Weeds.

She knows them only
by their common names,
‘Robin-run-the-Hedge’, sticky
with reminiscence,
‘Morning Glory’ twirling,
thornless, up the slender stems
of precious roses,
Nettles stinging, when disturbed
through the thickness
of garden gloves.
And then the stubborn
Dandelions, deep-rooted
in their community.
She smiles at the impertinent heads
of wanton Buttercups,
remembering,
other summers.
She knows
her grandchildren
will only bring her,
Roses.