THERE is gorgeous detail in this poem by Crecora poet Catherine Phil McCarthy, her window on to a local nun drawn with a painter’s eye. There is a beauty to the subject of ‘The Habit’, the nun’s worsted woollens and humble shoes, a boxy bonnet that stands out like a top hat among the passersby.
The crucifix is concealed: this is not going to be her entry into community. She belongs.
It’s a thrill to read a portrait of clergy of this era not contaminated by filthy endeavour or passivity. The woman’s intelligence shines, her chats with the children in their jockeying for play, the filter-down from a day’s nursing, her grá of nature and eagerness to share.
Again, ‘The Habit’ is from City of Culture anthology of poetry, ‘Dream of a City’. Come October or thereabouts when we know if Limerick moves from longlist to shortlist for the European Capital of Culture 2020 bid (#limerick2020), I will move on to other books and things for this Poem for the Day series.
Catherine Phil McCarthy received The Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry last year from University of St Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota.
The Habit
We often met you on the passage-/ our word for lane- on one of your strolls,/ long, black skirts billowing, the rosary/ beads hanging from your waist/ and the big crucifix hidden in deep/ folds of worsted wool, over pale/ plump ankles and laced leather/ granny-heeled shoes. Reading lauds/ or matins. You looked so unlikely/ against the greenery of fields and hedge,/ an immaculate wimple and veil,/ your face, framed by white starched bands,/ compared to us children in wellies and duds,/ at home in the mucky paddock/ fancying ourselves as Tommy Wade/ on Dundrum at the Puissance event,/ or Iris Kellett, in White City, in 1948.
Mostly you brought news first-hand,/ from the local hospital where you nursed,/ talked of micro-climate, where plants flourished of their own accord, / calla lillies, fuschia and aubrieta, hot/ pokers, mapped for us on Mount Eagle and Mizen and, no frost ever, in Schull.
