A weather sensor on the iMac dock reads a skinny 3Celsius. Looking ahead, there’s not a notch above single figures into next week. The upside to the sleet side is a luxurious open fire to bask away night hours. For which fuel has to be shovelled, wood dried, briquettes split and ash binned.
Ron Carey is a Limerick born, Dublin based poet with a Master’s in Creative Writing. Last year he was awarded Special Commendation in the Patrick Kavanagh Awards.
Much published and a regular hit in competition as a wordsmith, Carey’s ‘Leopard in the Coal-Shed’ is how every child – and sometimes this grown-up – feels on that fearful prowl outdoors in the dark to fill the fuel basket. The poet has written in a solid block of sentences that circle like the pace of feline threat, juxtaposed against the sweet safety of a child tucked in by maternal love.
The Leopard in the Coal-Shed
A leopard sleeps in the rafters of our coal-shed;/ Cobwebs shake on its ghostly breath; spiders/ Abseil the yellow teeth of its growl, Beneath/ its mottled skin, where once beat the heart/ Of a killer, the municipal mouse is on the hunt./ Under the glass glare of the leopard’s eye,/ It tiptoes through the tin-pot Dulux jungle, on/ Quick, painted feet. Turpentine bottles click/ Against the cold and crackled pane of night./ In our bedroom we, the Tarzans of summer,/ Listen and wonder. There’s nothing out there,/ My mother says and places a kiss on each brow./ When she goes, she leaves the window open;/ A little too wide, for an imagination like mine.
From the collection ‘Distance’ by Ron Carey, published by Revival Press here in Limerick, 2015, under the mantle of Limerick Writers’ Centre. www.limerickwriterscentre.com
