Anam Cara

November Questions

i.m. my uncle, Pete O’Donohue,

died 18th October, 1978

Where did you go

when your eyes closed

and you were cloaked

in the ancient cold?

How did we seem,

huddled around

the hospital bed?

Did we loom as

figures do in dream?

As your skin drained,

became vellum,

a splinter of whitethorn

from your battle with a bush

in the Seangharraí

stood out in your thumb.

Did your new feet

take you beyond

to fields of Elysia

or did you come back

along Caherbeanna mountain

where every rock

knows your step?

Did you have to go

to a place unknown?

Were there friendly faces

to welcome you,

help you settle in?

Did you recognize anyone?

Did it take long

to lose

the web of scent,

the honey smell of old hay,

the whiff of wild mint

and the wet odour of the earth

you turned every spring?

Did sounds become

unlinked,

the bellow of cows

let into fresh winterage,

the purr of a stray breeze

over the Coillín,

the ring of the galvanized bucket

that fed the hens,

the clink of limestone

loose over a scailp

in the Ciorcán?

Did you miss

the delight of your gaze

at the end of a day’s work

over a black garden,

a new wall

or a field cleared of rock?

Have you someone there

that you can talk to,

someone who is drawn

to the life you carry?

With your new eyes

can you see from within?

Is it we who seem

outside?