Eve Telford is an Australian-born short-story writer, poet and folk singer based in Cobh, Ireland. Born in 1995, she counts herself lucky to have grown up without screen-culture. She began writing at an early age. At fourteen, she won the Deddington Festival Writing Competition. She studied English Literature at Cardiff University, specialising in Yeats, the oral tradition, folklore and the Gothic. Her stories and poems have been published in The Mythic Circle, Cobh Chronicle, and the Dungarvan Leader, among other journals. She is a member of Cobh Writers’ Group and the Adelaide Mockingbirds. A synaesthete and animist, she believes that the creation of stories, poems and songs is a sacred act, and that it is the words who write us, not the other way round.

The Sea-Stream

(White Strand, Co. Clare)

Sand martin, circle, stone,
Melody that calls me home,
A rock with your face,
And you don’t know,
I sing the sea-stream now.

The stream sparkles to the sea,
And here is all,
And gold is falling
Into me.

The small birds’ flight untangles me:
They only know that they are free.
Headlands bright
With ravens’ eyes
That blink infinity.

The stream sparkles to the sea,
And here is all,
And gold is falling
Into me.

The martins spiral round my head,
Lives are spun and lives are shed.
Cliff-tops glisten
With starling wings
Remembering the sea-stream.

The stream sparkles to the sea,
And here is all,
And gold is falling
Into me.

The Broken Grass

(Meditations at the Bank of Ireland)

The grist of life
Hums in the twisted grass
Between the paving stones.
Three blades kiss the light,
One split in two.
The entertainment stall,
The supermarket mall,
And the Bank of Ireland wall
Heave on my bones,
Cleave me in two.
But the others
Have joined the coup.
They rush here,
They pivot there,
Never pausing
For a simple stare
At the curling,
The unfurling
Of the criss-cross grass
Where life glistens
In its eternity
In the broken blades.
I stand and sob
And the grass-life throbs
In the winnows
Of my bones.
I turn and go home,
And in the whirling
Of my soul,
A forest is born–
Of grass! I laugh,
For I am not alone.
Those who split
And sparkle
With the tangle
Of the grass,
Those who kiss
The bracken
Of the blackbird’s
Sudden dance–
These ones, too,
In times trundled past
Have knelt beside the paving stones
And sobbed the broken grass.

Children’s Bones

I thought I heard the old man say,
‘They come dropping bombs of night and day.
They are building cities with children’s bones.’

I thought I heard the old man cry,
‘They come driving tanks of death and life.
They are filling rivers with children’s blood.’

I thought I heard the old man wail,
‘They come flying planes of knife and nail.
They are paving motorways with children’s limbs.’

I thought I heard the old man weep,
‘They come bearing guns of hide and seek.
I plead the Lord our souls to keep,
My people rock in bloody sleep,
The eyes of nations never peep,
They are building cities with children’s bones.’

Heronries

At dawn,
I circle the heronries,
tracing rings
around the tallest trees.

My young I feed,
wing to wing
and beak to beak.

At noon,
I join the rockface,
glistening tall,
tracing rings
on the water
with still eyes.

My young are flown,
wing to wing
and beak to beak.

At night,
I fly back to the heronries,
empty now,
my wings heavy
with the years.
I’ll join the rockface,
join the water,
join the trees,
tracing rings
as my spirit
glides over
the river.

My young build heronries,
wing to wing,
and beak to beak.

The Circle of the Tides

When waves beckon,
and threaten
to overwhelm,
be still,
and with low tide,
and the unveiling of stones,
the waves of pain
subside.

The waves of pain
subside,
and clusters of shells,
awakened and alive,
remain. All is changed,
with a twist of pain,
yet all is ashine
like stones a-waiting
for the water.

Stones a-waiting
for the water
like forests waiting
for the rain.
In the rain,
in the rainbow,
dwells forgetfulness
of elements
and the binding of the seam.

The binding of the seam:
bark remembers tree,
hive remembers bee,
turlough remembers stream,
rock remembers sea,
humans remember what we are,
the sliding splinter of a star,
a spinning wheel,
a quasar heart,
tempting infinity.

Tempting infinity,
but never plunging far
beyond the Earth.
Mare Imbrium,
Mare Crisium,
Mare Vaporum,
Mare Nubium:
all inside us,
all without us,
all transcendent.
But very few dare
plumb the midnight air
to dip their mortal toe
into the deep.