Five Poems by Deirdre Cartmill

 

Under the Blue Seraphim 

 

They come to write a prayer for Ukraine, 

to rest for a moment, to escape the rain, 

to read the name of their child, the date 

when they whispered I love you and let them go. 

I never got to give you a name, 

 

but I come to sit in the quiet, to tilt 

my head back and gaze at the blue seraphim 

who sing Holy, Holy, Holy Lord 

as the sun pours through the lion and the lamb 

and lights a path forward.

 

 

Rooftop Gods                    

 

The Spire of Hope punctures the grey. 

I clap my hands and the roosting gulls 

screech and scatter. As they circle back, 

they draw my eyes to the blood red 

 

of the mural of the son of Protagoras 

holding a dead dove in his hands, 

its body pierced with two arrows, 

as he squats and ponders the existence of gods. 

 

 

Evening Devotions 

 

I knelt in the candlelight 

that flickered through the stained glass.                

 

The statues in the half-dark 

swayed in the shadows. 

 

The clink of the censer's chain     

was a metronome marking time, 

 

and as I breathed in the incense, 

the Latin chants lulled me 

 

into a deeper place 

where words weren’t needed.     

 

I sang Soul of my Saviour  

but you could not save me 

 

as the hymns faded and I walked out 

into the dark night,  

 

until I returned, lit a tealight,            

burnt my Palo Santo, 

 

closed my eyes  

and sat in the dark and listened.

 

 

Are You There, Beloved? 

 

The silence after the organ’s swell 

brings me back to stillness, 

back to you who drew me here, 

you who I still search for 

in the arches and pillars, 

in the marble floors and stained glass, 

 

in the light that floods the apse                                 

and reflects off the altar, amplified    

like your voice in every brick, 

every stitch, every footstep, every echo, 

every voice that calls out to you, 

Are you there? Do you hear me? Is it you? 

 

Are you the bent back that placed the tesserae? 

Are you the hand that carved the wood? 

Are you the throat that sings hallelujah? 

Are you the whisper in the eaves? 

Are you the light that flecks my eyes? 

And as I polish the cross, is it your reflection I see? 

 

 

 

Give Me This Day  

 

You rang but I didn’t answer. 

Are you in the cold again, 

in the mizzling rain, 

holed up in a sleeping bag 

from the Welcome van? 

 

You try to stop. 

You do for a while,  

but then the demon wakes,        

and as the cars cruise by   

and the drunks slag you,  

 

you cry, Give me this day my daily bread, 

for today’s troubles are enough,          

and I might not see tomorrow. 

 

I search for you in the bodies slumped 

in doorways and the cathedral alcoves, 

and I hear you mutter, 

If you’d walked where I’ve walked,  

you’d be lying here too, 

 

and that fear makes me scuttle past, 

stops me from being what I’m here to be – 

an outstretched hand, 

a listening ear, 

the answer to a prayer.

Deirdre Cartmill is a Northern Irish poet who has published three poetry collections - The Wind Stills to Listen (Arlen House), The Return of the Buffalo (Lagan Press) and Midnight Solo (Lagan Press). Her fourth collection Under the Blue Seraphim is forthcoming. She co-commissioned and co-curated Ireland’s first Poetry Jukebox which is now a permanent installation in Belfast. She is one of the originating artists on the collaborative project Bridging the Silence – a poetic audio walk and installation shown on pedestrian bridges which gives a voice to survivors of abuse and political violence. She is a part-time Lecturer in Creative Writing for Ulster University. These poems were inspired by her time as Writer-in-Residence for Belfast Cathedral.