Ceili Dancing

The Dancing Man

For J

Her poem about you

Pale faced, lying in a hospital bed

Tube fed

It’s not how I remember you

At a Ceili in a Parish hall in Sligo.

You were The Dancing Man

Promenading to and fro

7’s to the right, rise and grind

7’s to the left, grind and sink

Making stars in both directions.

Or wild haired and spouting your doctrine

of the Divine in rocks and sod,

Striding across landscapes

like some latter day Shelley

or Bronte hero.

Women fell in love with you wherever you went.

“He should carry a Government Warning Label

like a cigarette packet,” one of them said.

You made your own then, your fingers tuned

to the pinch, roll and flick of it.

No cigarettes now. And you don’t even miss them.

Clipped wings, what you miss is the buzz and swing

Forward, diagonal, set in place

Threading your needle

To The Haymaker’s jig.

Reflection

Reflection

Outside my window a veritable bird’s nest

Of a tree droops its errant offspring

Over the garden wall.

Never checked or pruned

Its interlace of branches fans the sky.

Supporting it, and at its centre, like Atlas,

A moss- green trunk stands motionless.

Atlas is about my age

Planted here the year I was born.

Do his arms ache, like mine,

Holding up his world?

Or has he learnt ease with stillness?

And no longer frets, as I do

At the antics of offspring?

But holds fast to himself

And knows that they too

Will learn stillness over time.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018

Getting Unstuck

As he tries to move on

The cat’s claw

Snags in the blanket

And for a moment

He is blind-sided

Panic flits through him

He thrashes about

Not realising yet

That he can just let go

That the trap is of his own making

That he needs to let

Call it instinct or innate wisdom or memory

Decide

What to do next

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018

And for some inspirational advice on Getting Unstuck see Pema Chodron

https://www.soundstrue.com/store/getting-unstuck-3900.html

Erratic Boulder

(1)

The winter sun does not reflect itself

in my furniture, dull with the passage of time.

Nor on the tiled floor, glazed

with thirty years of foot tread.

Nor even in the glass of a picture frame

that should reveal grey tectonic plates of sky

drifting westward.

Instead of which a grime coagulation

gathers at its corners, like flames,

Threatening to consume us-

A young couple in our prime.

(11)

We are at an erratic boulder

discarded eons ago by a river of ice

I can't remember its name-

Somewhere in County Down

I am sitting on this relic cross-legged

You are standing beside me

My arm is on your shoulder

Your two hands clasp my left knee

My head is in the clouds

Your head is tilted

We are both smiling

Behind us a path leads to this erratic

obstacle that we have become

The future is blank, a camera lens reflecting

where we are now

And people have been here before us

The rock is graffitied, the path is worn.

(111)

You will keep me on this pedestal for some time

I will fall off

And then the marriage will begin

And our journey will be much like that

of many other couples living in our times

We might learn something from that

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018

Breaking Silence

At 5am on June 13th 2012 Hanna Sheehy Skeffington smashed windows in Dublin Castle in protest at the exclusion of women from the voting process in Ireland. Follow links below for background story.

 ****

Her slippered feet made no sound

On the cobbled ground of Ship Street

Where windows hung still -curtained in sleep

Where no one saw or heard her creep

The Castle must have held its breath

Following her furtive progress
Recalling other dawn raid forays

Sixty Longships bent on glories

Stick armed, like them, she raised her arm

Shattering Dublin castle windows

Shaking dust from imperial curtains

Breaking the clipped tongue of women's silence

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Sheehy-Skeffington

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0206/938767-suffrage/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Scandinavian_Dublin

Empty Nesting

The blackbird's yellow beak is rearranging
the contours of my back-lawn
scavenging for worms,gathering moss
preparing for Spring and a new cycle

I do not yearn for nest-making
but long instead to shed
to stand- still 

and let- fall.


I have gathered too many twigs
and spider-webs and caterpillar-silks
I have lined my nest
with too many feathers.

Let the cuckoo do what he does best
and usurp my leaf-woven-haven
And let me, thus emptied, soar
wing-span sky-spread.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018

Imbolg-Spring

Yesterday we gathered to make Brigit's Crosses again to welcome in Spring.
I am posting a couple of poems posted before at this time of year.

 Brigit’s Cross

Its strength lies in the fold.

You bend the rush firm and hold,

fingers fastening it to the centre.

Turn it clockwise and return,

again and again.

It’s the last rush that decides whether

your lattice will hold

or fall apart

or hang slack

woven through with chinks of light.

At Imbolg

Stooped to the rhythm of sickle

we gathered rushes from the bog.

Or, with our hands, pulled stems

that raised wheals and reddened palms.

We lay them in piles.

Then folded and turned and turned

and folded until we made a centre

that would hold against fire.

Not knowing then that she was daughter of Dagda

Celtic Goddess, Crone turned Maiden each Spring

and that we were cutting deeper than bog

i mbolg, at imbolg.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016