Three poems inspired by my returning to live in Ireland, the country of my ancestors:

MY CLAN

If I just sit still and listen
to the silence and my heart
I can imagine them all.
Kate stayed on alone for years
gossiping with the shadows
when everyone else had left.
I’m an accidental man, said Thomas
every day of his life as he dug,
an accidental man, that’s that.
Deirdre walked around at night
howling at the moon until it howled back;
I can’t hear it, but they all could, I’m sure.

THEIR GIFT OF SILENCE
Rindoon Castle, County Roscommon

This is a special kind of quiet.
The builders always bring their gift of silence,
locking the unwanted language behind stone walls,
from where it shouts for help more and more weakly
until there is no one left to understand it
except those crouching in low turf houses
just out…