'Atlantic Palimpsest

https://literatureworks.org.uk/national-memory-day-writing-competition-shortlist-announced/


'Atlantic Palimpsest' has found a home at The London Magazine after being shortlisted for The National Memory Day Prize.

https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/atlantic-palimpsest-kerri-ni-dochartaigh/

‘Atlantic palimpsest’ 

-for Heaney and the Peace Bridge 

  

Grey and greying sky  

reflected in choppy body, 

as our matching heron 

performs his balancing act for all to see. 

  

The Donegal hills, 

patient, 

waiting; barren, 

call a siren song, 

lost and piercing- on the wind. 

ours is a past seeped in rust. 

a history bathed in thick, black squelch; 

M U D L A R K I N G, always, for our sense of self. 

waiting for that ancient bogland 

to spit 

and spew 

and remould 

our memory of last Winter, 

in all its terrifying beauty. 

  

The years that have passed 

are like a body now lost 

to the sea: already long gone 

many moons before that dark body of water 

swallowed it up 

-claiming-maiming; tossed 

-out and in along a coast line  

that will not claim ownership, in the harsh grey spell of morning. 

  

Things hidden under the surface 

that cannot 

cannot 

be kept in the belly of the sea. 

Memories that are washed up 

all along the tideline- obscuring the path 

not yet solid; the future not yet in seed. 

  

 I gather spat up objects, broken things and leftover parts of the storm  

and begin to see them, clearly, in all that fragile, unstoppable beauty;  

  

under a thundering, Island-thick sky.

Rust

We talk of rust and tin
and a five year plan
as rain pounds down on an old convent roof.
I remember you from a time long gone,
on a street at the top of where we both lay claim.

Your face- weathered, misted; beautiful,
haunts the deepest parts of me.
Eyes- bluer than cloudless skies,
greyer than industrial steel; 
majestic in the Autumn haze.

Rust spills out of cracks in the world
and I imagine the rest of our days
spent under decaying sheds,
in the West.

North

Soft, translucent light shoots down from a far-away place
as the landscape turns green, again, slowly.
Pale neon lichen on top of storm-beaten branches
and I remember Vik; snow falling horizontally onto raven black sand.

Soundscapes of swans and deep white stillness
fills up my insides
and I know that it is coming back, once more;
the circle has started to turn.

b r o o k e p a r k

there is a pink-footed light
spilling out of brooke park
against the grey haze of evening. 

you would have been 100 today
and the world has exhaled
softly, 
secretly;in hope.

I smell the rain above this historic city
and wait for the wind to come;
from the flames.

trust

you carry l i g h t 
in your crackled hands
and i wait for morning
to shine its first moon glow
in through the winter
w h i t e
of day

Any storm

Your eyes find cluster constellations

that mine can't quite map, yet.

Smoke fills the evening sky

as Jupiter shines down

on the icy bogside;

december's first night.

Ink on skin finds points

of no return;

moons in every phase to come.

Talk of caravans and lists

on damp paper

fill your kitchen

with hope and confusion.

And then you ask me

for 'Scaffolding',

and I know our wall 

will weather any storm;

any storm that comes.

Pewter

Awakening to the metallic chatter of late starlings
on Rosemount's mossy rooftops,
the night's pewter veil lifts slowly with the fog.

An old garden at the bottom of a seaside hill,
derelict, abandoned; beautiful,
and all around tourists capture loosening
moments on film.

Loneliness crept through my bones
and dragged me into the ivy,
and there he was, sound echoing out
in that folkloric way
-woodsman/ bird; woodpecker.

I allowed the red of him
to reflect out
the last of the scene's winter rays,
before the morning came. 

Bog-bleater

We walk streets- filled with rain and Christmas.
as the fog fades away; gently.
Words-not quite shared, never fully hidden-
hold sway in the bog.
A green kitchen- dark, still, autumnal;
filled with honesty.

I open up old wounds, as the radio plays,
too quiet for our eager ears.
Your eyes-pure/true/bright,
catch me out, as November drizzle
falls softly down,
on heavy coats.

Meirge

Last night I dreamed
of heavy rain
-decaying, rhythmic, beautiful,
pounding on an old tin roof.
That northern sky, dark as buried mines,
filled slowly with rusty green dancers;
every lamp in the house was lit.

Garden

Two blackbirds flit in and out
of dead, fallen branches,
in a garden filled with
brand new colour
and a Belfast sink.
Ferns, green and hardy,
trail down from the roof
and the black iron window bars
have started to peel;
beautiful rust outside these
dove grey walls.

The daffodils have begun
to wilt, 
yellow giving way to blue.
Harebells find pathways 
through the woods
and I see apple blossoms
in a new light.
We talk of being children
in an era long gone
and I can smell sea-salt
on my open hands.

Foraging

Light lingers,
like the smell of thyme
on that newly born mountain.

Spring, fresh as birth/
wild as oak,
holds her tune.

Our river,
mysterious and ancient as the night,
rushes forth.

The past is younger than our fading youth.
I gather my mornings in close
and pick harebells in the evening's white glow.

Heidagaes

Eyes shut to the yellow-grey glow
above the icy, new-born land,
I feel the sea mist rise up from the South.

One tin hut below us
- the only sign of our print upon the land.

Fyll encircle the cliff, returning to colonial nests
in a cacophony of guttural cries;
ownership and instinct.

The rain has made the lichen seem brand new;
wet orange paint on old, decaying wood.
The smell of thyme fills the air
and I find arctic river beauty;
spongy and filled with light.

Stillness takes hold, delicately,
and words are lost to the North Atlantic breeze
that carries a perfect skein of Heidagaes
above this folkloric cliff.

Tjaldur

Waiting for the snow to calm,
The land, white and lunar
beneath volcanic heights,
holds its breath.

We journey to the very South
of this Northern Island
in search of barren solitude
and silence.

Water gushes down,
falling like moonlight onto black rocks.
But we can hear no sound at all
from the cliff face,
Until oyster-catchers
undo the bright, still silence;
beautifully.

Alft

I knew that there would be mountains.

Vast, volcanic; violet hues grasping at grey snow-light.

The rift, too, long imprinted on the map on my inside, certain;

almost known.

The moss, botanical expression of courage

alongside memories of horses, brown and wild.

This land of fire and ice; etched in columns of basalt on my mind.

Pink-footed geese fill the fields

and fly powerfully above me; filling the sky with wonder.

And then they appear, against a backdrop 

of wooden Church and cotton bog-land;

elusive and melancholic as the dancing lights .

Painted cream and yellow by the snow and sun;

back from Alba.

No words can frame this moment.

I will hold it, like ice in my hands,

until the Winter comes back home.

West

Iceland

Iceland, Spring 2014.

Words and drawings.

West

Paths wind and meander
through passes made from ice and saga;
a fierce and fragile beauty.

Moss, greener than growth ,
covers volcanic rock;
spills onto damp paper
-circles in Icelandic clay.

Light, white as time/
soft as morning;
stillness atop ancient triangles.

Feathers on wet basalt
as time refracts off
blue spring;
life.

You stand beside a map of glacial water
as I collect elements
in my ice cold hands.

Milk flower

February, once more,
and the World is hopping/
outside of one circle,
into the next;
new beginnings.

The sky- red peach
-awakening to the
deep call of crows
at the first frost of morning.

Saint Bride has carried
back the light
on the wings of the oyster catcher
and the islands
are painting their hills
green in gratitude.

I fill my room with lavender
and sea thistle
in brown medicine bottles;
A botanical apothecary of life.

You send words to me
across a stormy sea
and I remember the wild flowers
of Inch island
in August's haze.

But the light is changing/
resurfacing/ reflecting
and all around of us
will be translated
into other words;
written on the wind.

I dress in white, again
and welcome back the snowdrops;
graciously