COME THE GLEAMING

 

New leaf climbs old tree-
this ivy will not be held
down is no direction,
dynamic is the trail of this root
now gleaming on the hallow wood.
Sometimes empty centres are for holding
hopeful hearts.
Layers of leaves come like coats of zinc-
a wrapping for these times were comfort is craved.
Nature nurtures freshly cut back bark
by the side of the garden
where thought had been neglected.
Not everything will survive-
not all bark, not all breath,
but hope, when held, can be as simple
as a trail of fresh branch
born around a broken bark.

 

Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

A QUESTION OF POMEGRANATE ANSWERS

 

I saw you first in a library,
in a bound book on front of the light,
as if you needed to ripen any further.
My first book, bound and borrowed
from a library, was Mrs. Potter’s
inquisitive rabbit Peter, all eager
to explore the taste of all he could
not yet name. We’re like that, children-
eager for the answer before we’ve
really come to consider the question.
I ask myself more now, at this midway
through the darkness than I ever did
then, where all was so seemingly light.
Yesterday, in the garden my youth
once played on, that time has now
returned to consider, an eager rabbit
came out to play and I asked if perhaps
there was camomile in the cupboard.

No, but there’s a pomegranate
in the pantry

came the reply.

And I looked at Peter and laughed
like I’d taken you from the bookshelf
in that light library, that day and smiled
as I turned your pages that held just
as many questions as there were answers.

 

For Eavan Boland. 

Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly. 

WHEN THINGS EVENTUALLY GIVE WAY

 

We were waiting for the green man beneath the blue sky,
waiting on an open corner to cross over, do you remember?

A simple day of smiling sunshine, an easy lunch of eating
smiles and we were laughing, were laughing at everything
and nothing- at the osteopath and his cracking observations
and the sunshine in that blue sly and your belly getting bigger.

You were listening to me, looking at me telling some tale,
making it taller, I’m sure, but you didn’t see I was floating-
my feet off the ground on that silly day, on that sunny day
of simplistic observations on easy corners with their moments
and movements when I found myself laughing and my feet
no longer weighted- no longer ground down or in or under.

We were bouncy and breathy and your belly- unbreakable,
so delicately unbreakable beneath the blue sky at a crossing
while eating up those bright smiles and breathing in easy air
under all that yellow laughter and realising that the red man,
when given time, will eventually give way to the green.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly