ANOTHER from Ireland Professor of Poetry Paula Meehan who has a handle on poignancy like no other. Open and short, ‘The Street’ is from Limerick City of Culture anthology, ‘Dream of a City’. It’s also the one from which this Astrolabe Press print derives its title.
Meehan suggests the hammerblow of a realisation too great to speak. Nature’s sounds become a harmony of distraction and the senses blur, helpfully. Souls see, eyes are eloquent, the bark of growth is a soothing instrument of sound.
The Street
with only one tree was from a dream/ of a city where I’d lost my mind/ on a bright May morning that broken year,/ and every soul passing my window
into the heart of their own mysteries
took a piece of me away with them,/ their eyes confiding a double bind/ that left me void, that tuned my ear/ to woodwind in a summer hedgerow.
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Lest this series ever have a reader, and one who wonders why these Dream’s are only pages I plunder, it has to do with our bid as a collective for European Capital of Culture 2020 status. Come October, we will know if Limerick makes the shorter long list or not. Come November, there is an expectation of decision making from the international jurors. In the meantime, this is my own way of flagging the presence of certain legacy treasure from 2014 and what that year made good.
Rose Rushe
