Some Excerpts

FICTION

Extract from The Elysium Testament (Trident Press, 1999).

"November 20 …

Mary O'Donnell Since living in Elysium these past years, so near the river, winters in Lucan are not what I'd imagined. Today there is smog, yellow outpourings from chimneys, mixed with freezing vapours from the Liffey. But the frozen dawns are beautiful, and the silky summer ones. I enjoy the unimpeachable silence of ice, the sight of snow frozen in stiff dagger-like blades to the branches that overhang the river. Above the trees, the sky is a mass of stars that flash and almost fizzle in the dark. There is always the sound of the river, but behind it a wonderful winter silence that does not break, even when branches crack above the river's frozen edges. Then the earth tilts, year by year, and we live again within a globe of crazy fertility, of weeds sucking against rocks, even the occasional kingfisher at pools upriver from the weir.
Above all, growth, the only thing to save us from ourselves.
On my way back from the supermarket this morning, I watched the shadowy imprint of the sun through the flying fog. It hung like a leaden ball and I thought, this is it. This lamp, ball, light, coalescence, is all there is. When it dies, and when the solar flares stop flaring, so will the seasons. So will we. We'll have nothing to respond to. The earth will cry out for heat and light and in the end, it too will die. The people who inhabit this place in the far future will be powerless in the new creeping dark of a dying sun. Pituitary glands will cease to function, hormones will not flow. The delicious mess which we call love and lust will not happen because the central light cell at the heart of our universe, our body of bodies, the true temple of the spirit, has died.
But light goes out in different ways. When I got back to the house, I lay on Roland's bed and counted the blue sheep which you painted when he was two. Cloudy mountain-blue sheep, they race one another around the wall of the room. His bed still carries his smell. The uncovered pillows hold traces of his saliva, his sweet night drool, like maps of lost islands, the comic-book kind where treasure is buried. Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll put on pillow-slips, the ones with the dancing clowns, his favourite.
I still hope.
I stil hope, some mornings, for a sign.
That he might come again, my love, my tender son, to this house, to his own bed at Elysium.

Swords and guns criss-cross the bottom of the bed. Khaki coloured rifles. Green plastic water-pistols. He kept them there in case he needed them at night.
'Sometimes he comes,' he once told me.
'Who?' I would ask.
'T'udder Roland,' he would reply.
'Is he nice, the other Roland?' I probed, content that our boy had imaginary friends just like many other children.
'Sometimes.'
'Only sometimes?'
Roland looked into my face, inviting me to read his mind, to understand what he could not express.
'He's the boy what makes me cry,' came the slow reply.
'Well,' I exclaimed in mock horror, 'I don't know what kind of a Roland that fellow is! To do that to you? He can't be a very nice friend, can he?'
'He comes at night.'
I felt a prickle of disquiet, at the thoughts of the child's peace being disturbed.
'Does he wake you?'
'No. I never asleep.'
'Of course you sleep, silly boy!'
'I never asleep. I wait for him.'
Bernie always said Roland looked like a child that wasn't getting his proper rest. But I didn't like to push the door open, in case it creaked and I disturbed him. He was a light sleeper, that I knew, so I left him alone most nights, unless the great terrors came over him.
People speak of the presence of the dead in their lives. That's the easy part. But perhaps he's really gone and that's all there is. What survives is the presence of pain, barely his, more mine, ours …."

Excerpt from a story in my collection 'Storm Over Belfast'

A Genuine Woman

None of us ever cheered Hitler on, because quite early in the war, Mike knew about the Jews. He had read something in The Manchester Guardian, something so awful we could hardly credit it. And although some of our neighbours could be quite gleeful as Adolph advanced across the Continent and showed the English who was boss, we were not. Austria, I always felt, was not much different from Germany, so I did not really think about the annexation there in 1938. Of course, I know different now. And when Poland fell in 1939, we were not so worried either, even though it followed quite naturally on the mean way he took Czechoslovakia, and after him saying he only wanted the Sudetenland! But the early summer of 1940 was another matter entirely. Denmark, Norway, Holland and France fell like dominoes. Somehow, the war became real, no longer a game which we could watch from our safe little independent island!

The evening before our lives were almost destroyed with shock, I went into the garden and leant over the limestone wall. I must have been quite still for some minutes, my thoughts drifting, for quite suddenly the fox appeared. From the corner of my eye I glimpsed it. Then I turned and all I got was an aftermath of orange, rust, the streak of his foxiness left like an imprint on the eye.

It's strange the things you remember. Not the event itself that joined us to the war. That doesn't come first, although it should, God knows it should. Often, it's the fox I see when I think of that day, because I also glimpsed one at daybreak, only two days later, as I stood at the landing window with Sean's old copybook in my hand, as I read and re-read his records: Bag for Season 1939-40. It's the fox I still see when I try to keep hold of myself after what happened, to keep the thing in my heart. It's not as if Mike doesn't know. I believe he does, that he tolerates it, tolerates my struggle with my own heart.

On Sundays Sean would sometimes take his gun out. He showed me his log-book the day before he died, and for some reason which I cannot recall left it behind him in the kitchen, everything written up in his square handwriting, a month by month and season by season account, dated and totted up to show the total bag for any season. For example, I know that in the first week of February that year he shot seven rabbits, two pigeons, two duck, five teal and four snipe. His total bag for that month came to thirty-three.

'Ah Kate, it's me you should've married!', Sean would tease me.

'You must be joking, boy!' I'd scoff, smiling in spite of myself, knowing what would come next.

'I might not be much, I know that ...'

That bit always upset me. Maybe he was smart, running himself down like that, or maybe was truly humble. I think he was humble, quite different from Mike, who, when I thought about it, had had everything at his beck and call.

Mike was always coddled. Adored by all, his mother and father, and the aunt and uncle that reared him. Loaned at the age of two to the aunt for a few weeks, sent the few miles down the road to their farm, before long he had them charmed. Just like he charmed me later on. His parents, who had children of their own, left him there. An act of compassion, you might say. Whatever way they loved him, it filled him with ideas and plans and interests. Now he is the creamery manager at the Shelburne Co-Operative Society, Campile, and I am his wife. The aunt frowned on me. Still does. Not good enough. A dairy maid that spent her days whacking butter after the churning, shaping and squaring the pound and half-pound with the butter-clappers till it fitted the waxy paper. The ridges of the clappers had to be scrubbed till they were sterile.

'Sterility is everything! Everything!' Mike would roar at us girls, terrified of bacteria.

But he was a gentleman, I'll say that for him. That continued after the wedding too. When first I began to notice his interest in me, I was struck by his nervousness. He was almost cold. Almost. He can look very strict when he's not sure of his ground. Fear extends his tallness, he holds himself more erect than ever, the shoulders stiffen and his face is like a mask, the long hollows below his cheekbones full of shadows and the darkness which hints at where he shaves.

But then he began to consult me about things that were unnecessary and obvious to anyone but an imbecile. He would point out different aspects of the new machinery in the dairy, running his hand over the tinned copper piping, or along the side of the great vats. Everything in our working lives was milky. The smell of it, the froth of it as it rose in the vats when the farmers delivered, then the other smell that came when it was heated, for separation, to one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit. When the cream came off, it in turn was pasteuriszd to one hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit. The slops, the skim went back to the farmers for whatever use they wished. The dairy had a biscuity, safe odour, almost of the breast, except nicer and sweeter and there was maybe a thousand gallons of the stuff.

I wore a new suit for our wedding, dark green wool with a black velvet collar and velvet trimming along the edges. The buttons were in a lighter green, some kind of glassy stuff. He insisted on going to Dublin to choose the best he could afford. The wedding was reported in the local newspaper, ending with the words: The happy couple are spending their honeymoon touring the West of Ireland. We stayed in The Old Ground Hotel, Ennis, then we visited the Burren. A strange place, compared to what we were used to. I could not feel safe on those great plains of stone, no matter what unusual flowers and weeds grow there. The Cliffs of Moher terrified me. Mike became impatient with me up there, because I refused to stand up in the huge gales that blew that day. If the truth be told, I often felt lonely on my honeymoon. The only place I warmed to was a coral strand in Connemara, one evening as the sun turned the restless waters of the Atlantic to floating fires, and the mountains behind us seemed the colour of a fox.

Afterwards, Mike thought of everything. He never wanted me to be worn out having children year after year, like his own mother before him. Ours were never to be reared with an aunt or uncle, no matter how kindly. So children we had. Two sons. Then no more children. He saw to that on his one and only trip to London. On his return, they didn't check his luggage at Customs. It is one of those things that still fills me with mirth, to think of those gim-faced customs officers watching out for dirty books and pictures and preventatives of any kind. The things he took home to Campile proved useful enough, once we understood how to use them. The book, which was written by a woman called Mrs. Marie Stopes, explained everything. These items I kept in the mahogany tallboy, in a special drawer with a lock on it, for my woman's things, (where I also keep Sean's copybook now). Mike thought that the best thing, that I would have recourse to the preventatives when and as I thought necessary. He was not, in spite of the care that he took to provide the things that helped us in matters of love, a great initiator. That was left up to me. Still and all, Mr. DeValera up in Dublin city was well and truly foxed, hell mend him!

All fiction ©Mary O'Donnell.

POETRY

From ‘The Ark Builders’ (2009)

Following Frida

That mono-brow wouldn’t work today.
Girls wax the in-betweens, the ups and
downs, smooth, smooth. Sometimes,
the greenery around the hacienda
itches so much we sneeze and tickle,
create unnecessary frowns, a slippage.
There’s always Dr. Death, of course,
his bright smile, that happy mouth
inviting us to pout and make kiss shapes,
Kiss, kiss! Kiss, kiss! he urges. His short needle
makes cushions of our worries. Little prick here,
another there, there, there,
it’s all right darlings, growing old
needn’t hurt so badly.
The hairs remind us, marching to link brow
to brow, shadowing our lips.
We want to be Frida, earnest with hair,
mocking Dr. Death’s short needle
before it punctures our flesh.
Old, old! we shout the words he hates,
loose and old, not tight and old!
Senses, raging, in need of colour
as we behold ourselves, mirror-wise,
the women we always were,
just older, looser, still there.

Heat

The once-blue ice is turning grey and soft.
Out on the wastes, rumours of skilled hunters,
long plunged beneath ice that tore like skin.
White bears head for the suburbs,
loose-pelted, drawn by the reek of leftovers

to raid trash-cans, rubbish-tips. Every winter,
their daring grows despite varmint rifles,
men who press the rounds in, shoot into
the night, then aim again, their breath
a whisper of ice with each retort.

The bears’ earth has lost its touch,
paws and claws no longer feel
stability on the deep ice-plateaux.
The only message is of earth’s dementia,
her watery heart fibrillating.

A huge gate swings back, water flows,
no longer rigged in cliffs to the ocean bed.
Melt-brained, the ice slides south, deserting
the animals. Arkless – fox, wolf and bear
forage towards the towns.

Growing into Irish Through Galicia

One morning you wander the streets of Santiago.
Too late to turn or hide,
way-laid by sounds, the raid
on your closed ear more than a whisper
of music flooding the rua,
a golden furl from the Hebrides to Africa,
caughte in a summer-fired sieve.

Young men perform with Uilleann pipes,
bódhrán, barrelling rhythms, wrist-flex, shoulder-roll,
the music of ancient fields and isolation,
where rain drenches memory.
In the shops, you pit your native tongue
against theirs, meet a Galician poet
with red hair to her hips and the nose
of an ancient queen, full of her knowledge.

Late learner, half-blind, tone-deaf.
Not your fault of course,
blame background, the Border, the bashful
silk of English,
one language hushed by the rhythms of the other,
until this rush to the senses.

By the time you pack for home, your tongue
has lost its proud edge of English silk,
you lug new words like a swarm of bees,
(the sting of honour, a carrier at last).
No longer backed up against the tide,
the shell of your hearing opens,
old words roll like sand in mussel-flesh,
grit to a pearl. And you are readied
to grow hair to the hips, though your nose
is small and you have only
questions. This morning in Galicia, you are free
and know it, cross the Praza da Paz in a chant,
hear answering chords, your tongue unsprung:
it fills your mouth like hymns
rising to a vaulted roof, and filled,
you expand, singing out hellos,
Ireland to Galicia and back again:
Fáilte, fáilte, fáilte!

From Unlegendary Heroes (Salmon Poetry, 1998)
Unlegendary Heroes

'Life passes through places.'
- P.J.Duffy, Landscapes of South Ulster

Patrick Farrell, of Lackagh, who was able to mow
one acre and one rood Irish in a day.
Tom Gallagher, Cornamucklagh, could walk 50
Irish miles in one day.
Patrick Mulligan, Cremartin, was a great oarsman.
Tommy Atkinson, Lismagunshin, was very good at
highjumping - he could jump six feet.
John Duffy, Corley, was able to dig half an Irish acre
in one day.
Edward Monaghan, Annagh, who could stand on his head
on a pint tumbler or on the rigging of a house.
- 1938 folklore survey to record the local people
- who occupied the South Ulster parish landscape.

Kathleen McKenna, Annagola,
who was able to wash a week's sheets, shirts
and swaddling, bake bread and clean the house
all of a Monday.

Birdy McMahon, of Faulkland,
walked to Monaghan for a sack of flour two days before
her eighth child was born.

Cepta Duffy, Glennan,
very good at sewing - embroidered a set of vestments
in five days.

Mary McCabe, of Derrynashallog,
who cared for her husband's mother in dotage,
fed ten children,
the youngest still at the breast during hay-making.

Mary Conlon, Tullyree,
who wrote poems at night.

Assumpta Meehan, Tonygarvey,
saw many visions and was committed to the asylum.

Martha McGinn, of Emy,
who swam Cornamundern Lough in one hour and a quarter.

Marita McHugh, Foxhole,
whose sponge cakes won First Prize at Cloncaw Show.

Miss Harper, Corley,
female problems rarely ceased, pleasant in ill-health.

Patricia Curley, Corlatt,
whose joints ached and swelled though she was young,
who bore three children.

Dora Heuston, Strananny,
died in childbirth, aged 14 years,
last words 'Mammy, O Mammy!'

Rosie McCrudden, Aghabog,
noted for clean boots, winter or summer,
often beaten by her father.

Maggie Traynor, Donagh,
got no breakfasts, fed by the nuns, batch loaf with jam,
the best speller in the school.

Phyllis McCrudden, Knockaphubble,
who buried two husbands, reared five children
and farmed her own land.

Ann Moffett, of Enagh,
who taught people to read and did not charge.

My Father Waving

In the New Year, we drove away
from the house on the hill,
shrinking, shrinking,
encased in ice, fragments of Christmas
in winking fairy-lights.
My father waved with both arms
like Don Quixote's windmill.

From the brink of motherhood,
lives swept past to be scuttled
on the reefs of the present;
then a processional: those quiet generations
moved through evening ice the colour of Asia,
described the entrances and exits,
parents of parents
like Russian dolls re-entering my body,
telling what was never told anyone,
announcing it now to my unborn girl.

The unstill past entered, forgotten
ghostlings and wanderers fussed
and made ready for the future -
one step ahead, bridging dawns,
afternoons between birthdays
and Christmas. The vision
displaced the crammed wells of my fear.
In the New Year, we drove away.
The child turned beneath my ribs,
the parents of parents waved.

Poems from September Elegies
Solstice

Clouds have cleared. The Wicklow mountains
undecked of weeks of rain, leave
liquid ledges that over-spilt the carping skies.
On this final day of the sun's trifling
with veils of moisture, low horizons,
there is light above - not the hopeful shaft
of a megalithic dawn, the silence in grave passages
as it steals through, then fades prematurely -
but a full six hours with earth and sky
revealed like chiaroscuro.

The lakes stretch out in loops,
like the eyes of slowly blinking water gods,
shorelines knotted with submerged boats,
as the ground squelches and soaks, but the sky
is a clear patch on the canvas of the global north,
mountains are semaphores, boue-grey signals
brushing open air, inviting light to enter and re-enter
streams, crotches of trees, the pores of our skin.
We are fully pleasured.

Homes

In half sleep, I almost forget that I am here,
and not with you in our own house.
When I open my eyes, a breeze
flickers at the curtains, light pierces,
a lance gleams across the bed.
I take my bearings,
cross the room to look down.

The garden is lit, a spectral daylight,
or an August eclipse
where we compose our lit and unlit sides.
Here, where I grew,
I imagine the ones
who will love and be anguished
together, as families are. Someone

will look down on this garden as I am doing,
in the middle of the night, someone
will be possessed with pleasure and sorrow
at an unannounced hour,
some middle-aged girl or boy
will know everything is borrowed:

a home, a wife's or husband's body - a gift,
as yours has been, your skin ardent as the moon
burrowing across the sky to this room,
far from where you sleep.

Mary O'Donnell's New & Selected Poems, New Island Books

Wilderness Legacy

I leave two books, as promised.
The Buddhist one on suffering, and
The Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam,
for the sake of a verse about
a loaf of bread, a jug of wine
and ‘thou beside me in the wilderness’.

For myself a dream of the Isle of Isla,
imagined from long ago, cottage
near the sea, black dog to guard me
when I wasn’t communing with Gallic poets.
You, occasional visitor to my wilderness,
would bring an extra seam of light,
that indefinable male gleam, itself a speech-
form conversing with my body.

Mostly it’s wilderness I seek. Buddha
can’t ungrow the harvest of suffering.
When you read the Rubayyat you’ll know
the huge joke on all of us, will sense
a ruthless finger, its protracted prodding.

To the shore now. The black dog
waits. He loves the way I smell
and how I speak to him.

The Derries, 1976

Photos show me in shorts, acting the farmer, pitching
a twist of hay onto raddled cart, hair haloed, light itching
my skin. It wasn’t the place for a tryst, your father’s land
a mile beyond the tunnel bridge, those few days, hand-

braided by ourselves, with tricks and contrasts, a dark hayshed,
smell of straw in the flecked bower when the old man was led
far away, a speck on the bog’s brown tide. The freest time:
my body tingled with all that lay ahead, a blind sublime

eye reading to the future. Even rapture deceives, never
as imagined, the world still spinning; I see you lover, as ever,
worrying about being caught in thick clouds of hay, our haunt,
I, laughing my head off at the notion, foreseeing the jaunts

I’d lead you on, the naked swims, unchoreographed, wine-
drenched dances, my best, my precious gift, a refusal to toe the line.

From : Speaking in Tongues

1.
The Virgin Mary Shell
Inchydoney Strand

guests are warned to replace it should they find one.
a receptionist shrugs off the mystery,
remarking that it’s rare

outside, a beach of latte sand gouache flickering
gulls
because I do not search, I find
weightless in my palm, trove, voluptuous square
with rounded corners, now held to the sky, an offering
like the hip socket of an extinct sea creature

markings are miniature, ciphers, posted
from the Atlantic, a graceful ‘M’ pierced
on bone-white: rotate the shell to see
the vital ‘V’

this is no Marian alphabet, but a vulva,
scored by an idle mer-boy imagining
the world of bifurcated beings, oceanic
Sile na Gig, umber cunt beneath an ‘M’

further along scallops clams whelks cockles:
discarded jewellery, flung aside in the toss where
waters meet, where getting to land retreating from land
nosing in boning deeper withdrawing again
before the tumult of a landing – is what matters

two tides, two pulses,
iconic erotic
what we have
all we need