Barbara Derbyshire is an author of short fiction and poetry. Originally from London and now an Irish citizen, her home is in North Kerry. She published her first book, Tapestry of Love, Life and Spirit in 2016. Her second collection of poetry and short stories, Leaving Echoes, was published in 2019. A third collection of poetry, Bicycles, Swings and Love, was published in November 2022.
Mary’s Sorrow
With ghostly sighs and cries, the babies and the children who have died
Walk through the night along the convent place
As Mother Mary looks at every little tear-stained face.
From up on high, she cries for the babies and the children who have died
“My son,” she says, “how did this go so wrong?
How did they lose the meaning of your glorious loving song?”
“They’re sold a tale, those babies and the children who have died
The holy men who set themselves on high
Speak of a vengeful spirit only there to punish and divide.”
“And the mothers of those babies and the children who have died?
Weep for them as I wept for you, my only child
Their young ones slain, forgotten and defiled.”
Moving Away
I die tonight
It doesn’t hurt
I just turn off the light
Your love is there
The strength of you
Your hand stroking my hair
I hear your cry
Your last farewell
You fade out with a sigh
My ears are sealed
My eyes don’t see
My body can’t be healed
So see me through
To heaven’s gate
Where I will wait for you
We’ll be apart
A little while
Your heart is in my heart
And then one day
We’ll meet again
Our love will find a way
Serene in Green
She came to me in green.
Her face translucent.
The veins which once gave
her life – no longer
blue with blood
The paleness of her skin made
her seem cold, yet the deep set,
sea-green eyes
gave her warmth.
Years, she had wandered,
just on the other side
of the Curtain.
Years were nothing to her.
Time has gone.
Now is all.
My fear left me when her
hand touched me.
Cold, yes, but full of
expectation and hope
Behind the green veil, she lived
just as she had lived before it.
The sound of her voice gave me
shelter, like the greenest, most alive
tree shading me from the scorching sun.
Her lips formed into a kiss.
I took her offering and tasted
sea and grass.
The sky reached out, took her home
to her green house in her green land.
It was then she let go my hand
abandoned me to the merciless
sorrow of the grey.
The Bones
It is in my bones.
Christmas dusk in Oxford Street
Always raining, sustaining me.
Shop lights turning night into day
Or day into night.
Shadowed illuminations in the puddles
making it twice as bright.
Early evening in Soho,
a queue dressed up for the theatre.
Friends at dinner in Chinatown.
Office clerks waiting for buses
to take them to Victoria Station
for their train to Suburbia.
Lovers holding hands,
smiling, making plans.
That city of contradictions.
Of booming traffic at Piccadilly;
ten minutes walking and the
perfect tranquillity of Green Park.
It is in my bones
But these bones are now older
And memories of the London life
Wash over them gently.
Sweet and distant past
Giving way to a rewarding present.
A now that lets me live in quietude.
A leaf blown from there to here,
Settling, settling, settled.
The Galway Review 