Sunday night and to relax I've been doing a little writing myself. Inspired by my trip into the Cooley Mountains and Newry yesterday I gleaned a poem. It was fascinating to be in Newry and to see something of the clash between the North and the Republic, so much seemed familiar yet alien. I was in another country. The accent was different, the countryside, the signs, the currency. I must go back again.
While in the bath I read a Susan Connolly poem which gave voice to a notion I often had about longing to be able to go back to the child you were and speak with her, to comfort her. The poem is called The Path :
My life has to be
exactly as it is,
so that she can find
her way back
step by step,
to talk with me.
Then googling Northern Irish poets I came across Leontia Flynn and a wonderful poem called The Furthest Distances I've Travelled which mentions exotic and far flung places but in the end the poet realises that the further distance she has travelled is between people "And what survives of holidaying briefly in their lives." This is a link to the poem and you can hear Flynn reading the poem too:
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