Five Poems by Art Ó Súilleabháin

 

A Laburnum speaks to me

 

It came in a plastic pot full of dry soil

languishing on a black refuse sack.

 

A gift with a flourish of self-importance.

I would not have brought it into a garden

where native rowans struggle to survive.

But I planted it in a corner near the wall

tumbled the weak root from parched soil

into a pre-prepared well in the rocky earth

poured an overflowing bucket of rain-water

around, to ensure it sucked a chance at life.

 

Days later it spoke to me:

I have sealed the tap

poison beside the roses

despite the crawling briar

the tangled lines of horsetail

struggling weaves of bindweed

hairs of ‘Johnny-run-the-hedge’.

I have pursued the intensity

of living in muted solitude

found a personal niche

but beware my bark

the trifoliate leaves

a pendulous droop

of yellow flowers

swaying beauty.

May will glow

into toxic

buttery

blooms.

Clinker built

 

Waves lap the shore over-run each other

a constant drowning of the next swell.

 

Pine stems needle sky but snow slides down

overlapped branches, lightening the load.

 

Mountains on horizons compact and fore-shorten

ship-lap to a flat plane, misty grey, blue, black.

 

His nine-planked boat, with red deal gunnels

and steamed oak ribs, mirrors lake movements.

 

The hull he makes, moulded into a precision larch-clinker

water of a pressing wave works a gentle uplift on his craft.

 

Clinker – refers to a model of boat-building particular to small fresh-water craft in Ireland, where the outer boards are overlapped on each other, rather than the smooth butting of planks that are then caulked to seal the joints. Clinkering creates a hull that is lifted by the action of water on the over-lapped edges.

Building a workshop.

 

He built the long shed with lodge pole pines

laid carefully in a rectangle whose diagonals

were checked, measured twice and matched.

 

He thought those staves would last forever

a time for him that could never be counted.

We climbed his ladders to fix bark-slatted

 

boards outside, cut edges from Cong sawmill

nailed to creosoted four by two cross-beams

felt on the inside dimming seeping draughts.

 

There, he spent hours in his own kingdom

flattening pieces of copper into killer baits

repairing broken candlesticks, leather bags,

 

chairs, tables, clocks, fishing rods, anything

to be fixed lined up on a chisel-chip bench

central plank an inch lower to catch detritus.

 

Spun a rickety lathe, turning spalted beech

bowls, signed underneath, his simple vanity.

He built a long legacy in that small space.

The hill of the lights

 

Stephen was there nursing a glass of whiskey

warming himself in the winged chair

close to the Stanley, the tumbler

warming on the hot plate.

 

He terrified us with stories of Cnocán na Salts

knowing we would have to hurry by

on our way home, fearful of

what might lie in wait.

 

In a west wind, fairies sounded like spruce

branches rubbing off each other

unknown ghouls shook dead furze branches

goblins rattled solid alder cones.

 

It was Cnocán na Sí or Cnocán na Soilse

a name bastardised by English sappers

plotting landscape for strange tenure

measuring valleys with crows’ feet.

 

Salt, what you shook to keep fairies away

gatherings, where you tickled a crowd

whiskey, how you warmed stories.

warmth, why you nursed it on.

What Naoise, Daragh, Radha and the unborn must learn

(for all my Grandchildren)

 

You will never learn in school:

How to pick blackberries

knowing how to choose the good ones.

How to climb a tree

knowing how to gauge steps with your eyes.

How to plant potatoes

knowing how to mind them until they mature.

How to gather mayflies

without crushing their delicate green wings.

How to mind bees

without taking too much honey from them.

How to bung a brandy bottle

without drinking from the cork end.

 

How to walk by the lakeshore

negotiating slippery stones that would tumble

you into the dark water

How to catch grasshoppers.

negotiating clumps of scutch that would trip

you into hummocks of reindeer moss.

How to know a beard lichen from the hawthorn

is good for starting a fire

on a wet March day on the Rouillauns.

How rubbing myrtle on your skin

is good for keeping horseflies at bay

on balmy summer days when they bite hard.

 

Will you ever:

foot turf

bend ribs

steam larch

teem a boat

build a greeve

polish bog oak

dap daddy-long-legs

pluck woodcock

catch minnows

collect words

learn poems

tie a knot.

 

You may never learn freedom behind desks

but I hope that you can discover

how to love and be loved.

Art Ó Súilleabháin was born in Corr na Móna, Co. Galway and spent some years in Boston USA. He worked in Dublin and Mayo as a teacher, in Castlebar as Director of The Mayo Education Centre and lectured at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC (as a Fulbright scholar) before returning to Corr na Móna.

Art has published a number of collections of poetry as Gaeilge for children. He won North West Words Poetry Gaeilge in 2017 and he has been featured in Poetry Ireland Review, Writing Home (from Daedalus Press), Hold Open the Door (from The Ireland Chair of Poetry), Vox Galvia, Trees (from Cinnamon Press (UK)), The Mayo Anthologymand The Haibun Journal, to mention but a few.

His first collection of poetry in English (Mayflies in the Heather) was published 2021. Art has read for Sunday Miscellany. He won the Bally Bard Festival in 2022. Art was selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions in 2022 and read at the Dublin International Literary Festival.

Most recently he was the featured reader at The Heinrich Böll memorial weekend and has been granted two weeks at the Heinrich Böll artist’s retreat (sponsored by the Göethe Institute in association with Mayo County Council).