(this is a modern-day adaptation by a non-poet of the sixteenth century poem Cill Chais)
Now what will we do for trees, with the last of the oaks laid low? There’s no talk of Cill Airne or its households and it’s cathedral bell will be struck no more.
That dwelling where lived the generous couple most honoured but neglected by State. Overtaken by crippling species its woodlands and visitors will be seen no more. Duck’s voices nor geese do I hear there, nor the Eagle’s cry over the lakes, nor even the bees at their labour bringing honey and wax to us all. No birdsong there, sweet and delightful, as we watch the sun go down, nor cuckoo on top of the branches setting the world to rest.
A stain on the boughs of CillAirne is descending neither daylight nor sun can clear. No hazel nor holly nor berry no dances or bon-fires nor wood for the violin.
I call upon Hazel and Enda to send the army our way: that CillAirne, the townsland of our fathers; will rise handsome on high once more and till doom – or the deluge – returns – we’ll see our woodlands no more laid low.
A Poet possessing expression and creativity. In 1990 Bernadette received the Silver Poet Award from World of Poetry. Her work has appeared in The Wishing Well; Musings in 2010, Small Canyons Anthology in 2013, Poems 4 Peace in 2014. Fix and Free Anthology in 2015. She is the Vice President of the New Mexico State Poetry Society and member of Rio Grande Valencia Poets since 2005.
Betwixt a crimson west of sunset
Rainbow-crowned thunder cloud on the east
Swept by ferocious gales
Lay Tucson waiting
Her locks scattered
Her feet on the north
On the Catalina mounts
Head pillowed on Santa Rita
Voluptuous, for her mate, the sky to descend
Genre: Nature
Tucson The Ma Nonpareil
by Madathil Rajendran Nair
Betwixt a crimson west of sunset
Rainbow-crowned thunder cloud on the east
Swept by ferocious gales
Lay Tucson waiting
Her locks scattered
Her feet on the north
On the Catalina mounts
Head pillowed on Santa Rita
Voluptuous, for her mate, the sky to descend
As mesquites, palo verdes, oaks, figs, acacia
Waved their heads in demoniac dance
Lighted by an unearthly shine
As though possessed by the elements
An evening was about to gasp its last
And then it came in a clatter
The sky with fingers of rain
Stoked her insanity as she giggled
In puddles and streams
As the Rillito swelled in orgasmic passion
Oh, what a beautiful night it was to begin!
And what happened then
To the luminescent fig beetles
Delicate dragon flies
Arizona sister butterflies
That throng the sunny days
Of Tucson’s breeze and glitter?
Don’t ask stupid mind
She is a mother, she knows
She had them hidden safe
Under her locks
As the sky stoked and stoked
And as she giggled without end
That beautiful rainy night
Tucson, the ma nonpareil!
Autumn in Florence
Is a mélange of the elements of charm
A yawn away from the steady shivers lying beyond
At dusk, a wistful stroll along eclectic memoried boulevards
With echoes of church bells in tow
Unveils a canny sense of things
A nostalgic glimpse of old things,
Old people, old places,
Bequeathing their secrets unreservedly,
At the end of a tacky, melancholic day
Genre: Nature, Weather, Italy, City
THE GREATEST GIFT
by Augustine Sam
Autumn in Florence
Is a mélange of the elements of charm
A yawn away from the steady shivers lying beyond
At dusk, a wistful stroll along eclectic memoried boulevards
With echoes of church bells in tow
Unveils a canny sense of things
A nostalgic glimpse of old things,
Old people, old places,
Bequeathing their secrets unreservedly,
At the end of a tacky, melancholic day
It is autumn in Florence …
Even the blind can tell
For a whiff of that dry Tuscan air,
Disguised as a romantic breath on the cheek
Now wafts soothingly, alluringly,
Like the caressing whisper of a lover at dawn
The gaiety, the gossip,
The veritable quality of the decline of the year
All of it a mishmash of this season of gloom
And caught in the midst of it, you and I,
‘Cause in our souls, a conscious dread had sprung
It is autumn in Florence …
Even a tot can tell
From the inexorable surge of parched foliage and withering flora
Now palpable like a beauty queen wilting with the passage of time
As an impotent sun looms
With a staggering degree of poetic frenzy, like a bad omen
Over that little piazza I call lair and you call refuge
Jaded, like the dream that steered us here
Nadir, like our possibilities, and poised to snap,
Like the fragile thread holding our sanity together
It is autumn in Florence …
Even the inebriated can tell
For the Tuscan sky is daubed with gray-hued awnings
A kaleidoscope of waning streaks, epitomizing
The artistic finesse of the heavens
A subtle connotation, a riveting verity that
Four times a year the seasons change without fail
That now leaves must turn sallow and plummet, and flowers must wither
And with them, everything except us,
Must leap beyond their prime
It is autumn in Florence …
Even a troll can tell
From that lingering mystery of vitality and lethargy,
So exquisite, so sophisticated,
That no longer obscures the daunting haze that strains the air
In the flush and bloom of early womanhood, you …
Radiant like a new moon on a starlit night
Cunningly oblivious of the secrets of my tears
Paying no heed to the disheartening dread that swathes me
For in this season, with every leaf that falls,
And every flower that withers, your days are numbered
It is autumn in Florence …
Even an obtuse can tell
From the stunning sight of Fiesole transformed into violet by the magic of twilight
And now, here we are—you and I—ensnared by a dream
Unraveled by a foe, invincible and vile
Like injured rebels ferried home to roost
Desolate hands too volatile to reach
Ardent eyes too doleful to watch
As your frailty eats you up with delicious cruelty
The way a vulture does a prey
Causing every fantasy within the limits of our amorous deeds
To evaporate, along with the last breath in your lungs
It is autumn in Florence …
Even dreamers can tell, for
The vestiges these bleak nights amass were once stacks of hope
On which now abide memories undimmed
A better friend than you life never gave
You were the bloom that autumn failed to erode
The warmth that winter couldn’t pinch from me
The wind that summer could not smother
The flare that’ll forever be my spring
But more than all this, my love,
You were life’s
Greatest gift
To
Me.
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