Vox Populi
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Attracta Fahy: Two Poems
Vigil I walk to my parish, over the five fairy forts, climb church stiles that once led believers to Mass. Four paths, through fields to the 17th century church, hidden amongst overgrowth, bramble, briar, whitethorn, and clump. Only faint outlines of stone, hidden in ruin: time’s watermark. Speaking in silence, walls tell our history, famine, eviction, emigration. TB. This parochial fold lived dutifully despite hard times. Entombed in sacred grass, they will us to learn their lost history, complete the work, theirs and ours. I imagine turf fires, safety from the cold of fear and pillage, recall stories of survival and defence. I walk through what was once barren, now fertile fields, call, invoke the names: Chapel field, Back field, Race field. Then on, to the road my forefathers trod to the old school – the only heat, sods carried each day. Past the red pump, once important, decorative now. I see the clods and marks of cottages that once housed people I knew. They have left, the storytellers, all dead. I call out again to the people I knew: Raferty, Flanagan O’Keefe, Hussey, Whynne, Melody... -- Picking Potatoes We walk home from the fields, our young backs arched, aching, from spreading slits. Row after row we lean over these same furrows, in autumn, picking ripe potatoes. Tired bodies pacing home in evening sun, crimson growing beyond our hill, little said, unable to say the unspeakable, mindful, waiting for rest. Rolling limestone walls, insular, hold a fantasy, a world outside our carpet of green fields. Security too in the disipline of work. With tasks well done, we believe in a greater life. Longing connects us to fields beyond our world. We will grow into what we leave. Almost home, our tea is waiting.
Attracta Fahy’s collection Dinner in the Fields won the Irish Times Award. She grew up on a farm and now lives in Galway.
Vox Populi 
Home of my ancestors, places I would like to wander and connect, now I wait to see if the plague will take those travel retirement dreams. It cannot take my travel through poetry.
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I lived in Ireland when I was young, and grew to love it. You should go when the shutdown is over, Barb.
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I was trying to go to mountains ( Andes and Himalayas) first since I am older than the cut off age generally given for high altitudes. Then I went to Italy with my daughter because of her love of wine. In the interest of this game with age and death, I should probably go to the home of my ancestors next when we can finally travel again.
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What a clear, exquisite, moving voice! I didn’t know about her — thank you for that post, Michael!
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