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GO TO MLC HOMEPAGE
ONLINE BOOKSTORE FEATURED TITLES
Best of Irish Poetry 2010
Editor: Matthew Sweeney
Songs of Earth and Light
Barbara Korun poems translated by Theo Dorgan
Done Dating DJs
by Jennifer Minniti-Shippey
Winner, 2008 Fool for Poetry Competition
Richesses: Francophone Songwriter Poets
Edited and translated by Aidan Hayes
Munster Literature Centre
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GERALDINE MITCHELL
Geraldine Mitchell’s first collection World Without Maps was published by Arlen House last year when she was also awarded an Arts Council bursary. She won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2008 and lives near Louisburgh, Co. Mayo.
_____
San Juan de Dios, Grenada
Small Mercy
_____
San Juan de Dios, Grenada
--for no reason
I am washing dishes
my hands half-plunged
in lukewarm suds.
Between sponge and plate
an image—
that paupers’ hospital
last seen twenty years ago:
the heat
the flaking plaster
shuffling men
in thin pyjamas
felt slippers in the sun
liver-spotted spectres
in and out of shade.
Another day
a village café in the Pyrenees.
It’s Wednesday.
First drops of rain
lead pellets
on the plane tree’s palmate leaves
pockmarks
in the pink-brown dust
our bare legs
splattered
and the owner’s tow-haired grandsons
balancing our plates
across the yard
in slow procession.
But mostly
it’s a scene I cannot place:
somewhere in Spain
the south
a bend in the road
the shade of fig trees
a low wall mounted
with a stiff wire grille
and we are driving past—
the sort of moment
banal and everyday
when nothing much is going on
when you see
there is no turning back
just the on and on
around another bend
for no reason.
____________
Small Mercy
Achill, Nov. 1st, 2010
Enfolded in an empty house
for living company a spider
and a wilting basil plant
I am rimmed round by stone
rolled back
to the thick centre
of silence
where the sun sings
to a crumb of bread
and the spider’s missing leg
becomes the focus
of the morning’s distillation.
Last night they jostled
at the foot of the bed
the unnamed dead
asked for nothing
save that we keep them
in our minds
where the air is
where we are.
Left meekly
as obedient dogs
the last chill of camphor
breathed back into
the river-rounded stones
of my penitential tholos:
updraught of air, fresh earth,
the sweet breath of children.
©2012 Geraldine Mitchell
Author Links
'Waiting Room', Mitchell poem in the Tribune
'Funeral': Mitchell poem in Southword Issue 17
'Quiet Quarter': Mitchell on RTÉ radio (April 17)
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