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polski (Polish)
In the Galway University Hospital framed POEMS hanging for years.
Once, when we went to the Emergency Department with my husband, we were sitting in this waiting room with poetry around. And I remember that this little help of poems broke away us from the tension of fears.
At the moment we could cross the borders without moving.
So I strongly believe, that POETRY can be caring for us during a pandemic.
Poetry can be like a trip from our cul-de-sacs to edges of the world to ourselves, and to others. It can help us to accept what we really afraid of.
Poems can give us fun, too. It happened to me and my husband, when we tried to translate works of Irish poet, who nobody has translated to Polish yet. It was a very difficult task BTW, but it motivated me to search for intereseting things about language and also to continue reading Irish poetry books, which I have.
So, now with pleasure I can present to you three poems by Michelle O’Sullivan, a contemporary Irish poet, from her poetry book “The Blue End of Stars”.
In Michelle’s poems, I find the rough climate of West Ireland in which I currently live. Rain here is like daily bread, grey is very popular colour for the sky, but at same time it is MAGIC OF RAW BEAUTY.
I invite you to discover. Esspecially, that 21st of March World POETRY DAY is coming.
We could share poems with each other, than. It will be a great pleasure for me if you would like to put some poems in the comments.
Beside the Harbour
The sea on this hour is pale, withdrawn
It moves to make waves, and gives in
to purls, a thread of currents, childlike,
it’s wanting its bed.
Above its face the sky is brightening
clouds stretch and start to shift their banks
the dull weight of grey begins to lift.
The room you sit in is cold,
a fire thinned to a single flame.
You and this room are a sign of life,
not yet beautiful or loved with use.
The sea outside thrives on a wick of desire,
a hidden source that swells and turns;
it is this light I find you in.

An unknow Blue
I want to be still
as a folded note
left on a table
before sunrise,
silent at the crease
concealing words
that will not
have been read –
for all intents unopened;
just a strand
shimmering
on the dark edge of a knife.

Ambit
The river tonight is glassy,
as if asleep
or pretending to hold its breath.
Peaked stretches of cloud
spread out on the fields
and a scar-faded sky lingers.
There is nothing withered here,
nothing lost in the lampless dusk.
It whispers something primitive,
long-running, well-deep.

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