30/05/2024
TRAIL
We learned that Ireland was a temperate island
from our first geography books, the climate mild,
the gulf stream a blessing that saved us from freezing
though we live at the same latitude as Moscow.
And the child, I was found that word disappointing,
no earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, volcanoes, floods.
Temperate!
I took to astral travel out the school window,
lift-off on the storied wings of myth and legend,
and bitter tales of landlords and emigration,
of plantation, rebellion, famine and ruin.
They offered us a trope of the traumatised nation.
They made us feel the land had failed us. They bludgeoned
us with shame, left us lost, fearing our own shadows.
I grew up. I roved out in blue britches of denim.
I walked the roads. I slept in ditches. I fell in love
with a mountain tarn. Its black eye mirrored the stars.
The island took hold of me: ice-sculpted valleys,
glacial erratics, moraine, esker, bog, karst,
her meadows, her rivers; and beamed down from above
Planet Earth – our grave mother as seen from the moon.
The mitochondrial tug of eternity,
that slow pulse of evolutionary regard
from deep within the ancient reptilian brain,
seat of instinct; from such a critical distance,
my neo-aboriginal imagination
must dream new endings, must fashion prophetic words
fearing they’ll not be heard by our posterity.
You’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that … our human span
an eyeblink. To save the world is not so simple
as to mine an ocean for each salt tear we’ve wept.
The Island, A Prospect
Paula Meehan
