Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 65

What we are

Translator’s notes:
1.July 12th is the day Protestants in the North of Ireland celebrate the defeat of the Catholic ex-king of England James II at the Battle of the Boyne by his nephew and son-in-law (keeping it in the family), the Dutchman William of Orange. The Protestant William was backed (along with most of Europe) by the Pope (I kid you not), as one of the measures to keep the Catholic Louis XIV of France in his place. It incidentally secured the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, which nobody cared about one iota.
2.’Taig’ is an abusive name for Catholic.
3. For an idea of what the ‘celebrations’ look like, I suggest browsing the twitter thread #KKKulture.

What we are

It was July 12th and she sat in the shade of a lime tree in the insect-quiet of early afternoon, trying to find what they call inner quiet. She looked at her fingers spread in the dry grass, the mosquito bites on her arms, the sleeping dogs, the heat-shimmering blue of the sky and tried to be entirely in that place, in that moment.

July 12th and a long way away, a fat, laughing Belfast woman and a skinny Asian youth were singing ‘I’d rather be a Paki than a Taig’ for the cameras.

She was a long way from the place her parents called home, but it was July 12th, and the crackle of dry grass was the flames of the bonfires, the tree branches swayed beneath the weight of hanged effigies, and though she dived into an ocean of inner quiet, she would still be a Taig.

If

If

If this heat spread soft as butter,
gentle as morning birds
and the breast feathers lining nests,

if this sun cast cool shadows,
where water runs beneath tall trees,
and damselflies glitter in the gloom,

if this day stretched
from misted blue of dawning
to full moon dusk,

silver and solemn,
drifting languid
as a swan’s neck,

perhaps I would not feel
the sharp clenching of
merciless steel teeth,

the fear that dusk,
silver moon and deep night
may not be enough
to sooth the burning.

Nature worship

A trio of cinquains for the dverse quadrille prompt.

Nature worship

Cool green
celebrant of
tree praise, the stream ambles,
strumming root and fallen branch with
music.

Skywards,
the poplars rise,
oriole-filled, silent
in the crushing heat, except for
leaf-hiss

and the
warbler’s ceaseless
song, soft as rain-patter,
building epic nest myths in the
quiet.

Mice and their cats

Mice and their cats

We have mice in the house. Field mice, not house mice. Why do we have field mice when the fields are full of things for mice to eat? Why do we have any mice when we have two cats and two dogs?

This house-boat leaks, broken tiles, mud walls, planking chewed and holed. Internal doors with pieces cut out at the base to let cats through, shutters in the attic with holes for the owls, a separate exit for the pigeons. Mouse highways.

So we put everything edible in plastic tubs or glass jars, keep the fruit in a meat safe, sweep up crumbs.

Yet we still have mice. We hear the scritch-scratch in the night while the cats sleep. See them scamper across the kitchen in the daytime while the cats sleep.

In the long ago and far away, a wise ancient had the bright idea of inviting cats into his granaries to eat the mice. I don’t suppose there are records of his success rate, graphs to show rodent populations, champion hunter tallies.

All we have are the memes, household cat gods, sleeping in the sun, by the stove, waiting for the next meal to appear from the fridge.

Balance
in the stars planets
the orbits of satellites
day and night plenty and famine
we strive
balancing on the tipping point
dancing
between too much and too little
what is and what should be
like the stars and their music
the deep tragic silence
of felled trees.

A river of images

Today, Top Tweet Tuesday is hosting a review fest for independent poetry reviews. For a while now, Amazon has refused to let me post reviews, insisting that I never bought the book, I don’t have an account, I don’t exist etc etc. It’s frustrating.

Anyway, TTT has nudged me to try a different approach. I have tried posting using my Amazon.fr account, the one I use for buying anti-flea pipettes and ink for the printer. It worked! I think. Still being processed, but this ***** review of Merril D. Smith’s poetry collection River Ghosts might actually appear on the Amzon.fr site soon.

A river of images

Merril Smith has been one of my favourite contemporary poets for a few years now, one of those poets who uses language to paint pictures. Her poems are to be read slowly, admired. They should be absorbed like a painting in a gallery. A quick glance then moving on isn’t enough.

So much of the poetry in this collection is about colour (especially blue), memory and the moving river of the turning world. So much of it has the feel of an inheritance, as if memories have shaped the words and transmitted emotional images of things the poet has never seen. Her tender stories about her mother’s forebears in eastern Europe are like Chagall paintings, mythical, dreamlike interpretations of life that is often hard and unforgiving.

The poem River Ghosts sets the tone of the collection, the gentle winding of a dream-river. Dreams and memories are at the core of each of these brightly-coloured poems, but some get under the skin. The poem Handprints, for example, with its images of light, the red handprint on a wall, an arcane symbol, the ancient light of stars, bouncing back and forth in repetition is more profound than simply beautiful. And my favourite of the many poems inspired by Smith’s late mother, Hearts, where the perennity of the ones we love is like a river, flowing from generation to generation.

These poems are profound but limpid, personal and universal. They are simple poems with many layers, like paint on a canvas, their message clear, lyrical and un-clever. To be treasured.

You can get a copy of River Ghosts from Amazon.co.uk or at Amazon.com

Ghosts

Redmond sees ghosts. On the kitchen table. What do you do with a dog that sees ghosts? I wondered if it was the melon, but the thought of what a head-sized melon on a table might signify is too Godfather-ish. Bix (who sees nothing) tries to comfort him, but he can’t. Redmond sees what Bix doesn’t, what we don’t. Who sees the truth?

In the penumbra of old walls,
the table where generations
of elbows have rested,
red tiles where boots have trod
and savates slip-slopped,
in the hot air,
thick with hay dust,
something stirs,
waves
or shakes a fist.

Waiting for something

This morning the Oracle gave me a cadralor. I had the impression she had more to say, and she did.

Waiting for something

We stand by the lake in the red dusk
among black trees of bare winter,
waiting for the white ship
that bears all the things we yearn for,
things we have not yet imagined.

There is music shining through the mist
that dresses the trees in ball gowns,
and we dream of sea spray,
the sting of salt
and the plunging prow.

She is there in the shadows,
poppy red, blood red,
the mother of all things,
the sun and moon
and these bare winter trees,

beauty in the honeyed light
where thrushes sing,
dead leaves rustle in rain-patter,
and footprints in dark earth
cradle curled trees clad in acorn seed.

This time, she says, do, be.
Follow the trailing songs
and the pitter-patter of the rain,
unbuild the fences,
make a sea of gardens.

Things that fade, things to come

Things that fade, things to come

1.
The roses have fallen
wind-plucked petals
but their music still plays.

2.
The woman wandered the forest
looking for beauty, not knowing
she carried it with her.

3.
Rust has a smell of blood
the taste of iron
in the veins of all things.

4.
My fingerprints on the rock
washed by the rain
ephemeral traces.

5.
When this storm is over
I will see beyond the horizon
the white sails of the sea.

Indecision

There are still words
in the space between here and there
but they are insubstantial
weightless as the gossamer threads
that drift between the hornbeams
and of less consequence.

I pluck their petals
and let them go.

Morning world

Photo from end of May. The wheat was harvested weeks ago and there’s a new crop of sunflowers coming up. The barley is being harvested now.

Morning world

Morning world of chestnut dapples
mushroom-cream and the blue above
green grass-trotting
listening to the taste of the trees waving
and the wind singing.

We smell the summer as we step-jingle
high above the lane
where kites and buzzards soar
broad-winged dark and curved.

Heat rises from was-mud
now yellow clay-dust
spick-specked with hoppers.

This world listens to the warblers
in the cool of the woods
tastes the joy of outdoors.