ORIGINS
Adoption
SEASONS OF THE FALL
I climb things, climbed things, out of warm womb,
fresh from first hold into new arms
already breaking, wondering about climbing back up.
I climb things, climbed things, chimneys in a child’s mind
looking for traces of reindeer and reasons
to still believe in faith and family and catching flight.
I climb things, climbed things, out of closets
and their cluttered comforts, out of skins I’d slipped into
to confuse the conscious and the curiosity
of others that could be cruel. Climbing can often cut.
I climb things, climbed things, into beds that didn’t know
any better, mouths that choked and fingers
that felt familiar, for a time, holding me
to ledges of love and lust and the lies in between.
I climb things, climbed things, over waves that didn’t drown
but even the sea comes over you in cycles,
some you win, under others you sink, like losses
and lovers and faith and fate. Sometimes climbs are a descent.
I climb things, I climbed things without ever looking back.
Now, I move forward through backward steps,
through chimneys and out into flight, into folds
and then out further, drawing in trust
and expelling worn waves, blind to coming corners
while studying the method I used to survive the last fall.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
THE TABLOID TELLS OF THOUGHTS FROM TEMPLE HILL
I read in the paper this morning
that we were hugged.
That sometimes a nun cried
when fledgling flew from her fold-
a sister of scripture sobbing for a son
she would never call her own.
We were just play toys
far from the playground-
touches temporary
while waiting to be wanted.
I read in that paper this morning
that sometimes someone sang to us-
before we knew what a song was
or what sadness meant
or how tears come not only in sorrow,
new born babies already waiting
on new names in the odd arms
of a caped collection of sacred ladies
singing us songs of selection.
All words by Damien B Donnelly
MY THREE FATES
I- The original
Water floods flesh
From carnal comes forth creation
Washed in sin
and they watch. In judgement
Water releases hold
Sign away the rights to his name
II- The Second Coming
Tears flood drained desert
She will be an ocean once more
Blood is not the only bond
Longing leans in with twice the light
while they watch. In judgement.
Her tears taunt their dried lips.
III- The Journey
You are ocean endless and I worry
about growing tired.
Sides streets hold songs.
Every cobble a connection for collection
Born from one and raised by another
Now the road is the mother
Feet turn on judgement. I found the refuge
The final fate is on the road.
All words by Damien B Donnelly
ORIGINAL SONGS
Here now, flown back to nest since moved in absence,
these streets hold no shadows of my former shyness,
they do not call me by nickname, or your name.
I was never open enough then to be called by your name,
their name, his name, back then when there was no him
and barely a me.
Here now, back to where they began, before me-
their nests, their streets, their lanes, their stories
I’ve since borrowed, not knowing much of my own,
those told before me.
Funny now, to be here, in this nest, perched on this position,
you say it’s home and there’s truth in those words
but it’s like saying we’re family- this was never my home
and our blood is not the same.
We look out at the same land, the same tree, the same leaf
but we do not perceive the same stars at night
when the garden is gone and the universe asks
where did you come from?
We are what we believe. We come back to what we know
regardless of where we’ve been, of who we’ve become.
Of where we started. Adoption can be a cold word
to begin with.
I came from a broken shot off cupid’s bow where a single tear
flooded the moonlight as a siren screamed and one other,
lost to her first song, called out for another chance to hold
a snowflake in her hands. We were both born to sing
in seasons different to our own.
I came back on a wing’s turn to question the concept
of a nest, of where feather first found flight, I came back
older, taller, wiser, to look at youth from this odd angle
of middle age, to look at connection from the perspective
of having already left the nest, to sit, here now, in this garden
freshly trimmed down and cast this bird’s eye view
over where the roots were first planted
and who laid the first twig.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
TURBULENT SACRIFICE
Mama was an unmarried mother
at the end of the summer of 75
as Joni hissed of the snakes
in the gardens of complacency
where ignorance was still very much alive.
Mama was only a girl in the growing
and possibly no more than just 18
when she bent down and placed
a kiss on my cheek and whispered
goodbye to her own little green.
Mama is someone who I’ve never met
aside from the dream I once had
of her life in a kingdom that ruled
you could not mother a child unless
at first you were a legitimate wife.
Mama was an unmarried girl one winter
in the arms of a man barely stretched
from a boy, her trust in the throws
that left little to believe in and a pain
that pulled on the strings of goodbye.
Mama was once an unmarried mother
and bursting with thoughts her shape
couldn’t hide, but helpless and hopeless
were not part of her form and so she did
what she could when you can’t be the bride.
Mama was a childless woman
when winter that year came cold with its calling,
and the tears started breaking
and the leaves began falling
like the water that had broken,
like the hold that had not held,
like the hope that was drowned,
and the hand that was expelled…
too short, too quick, too hard,
too much to let go for good
and the snakes started hissing on the lawns.
Mamma was the unmarried mother
who gave me the greatest gift
that anyone could, of growing up
knowing that what she had done
was to give me up for a greater good.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
This is a repost form my Joni Mitchell series.
Last month I added my name to the National Adoption Contact Preference Register in Ireland. Maybe the story still has a tale to be told, time will tell…
Sometimes knowing where you came from gives you an idea of where to go. This coming December, after 23 years living abroad, I will move to Ireland to start a whole new adventure in my home country that now feels like an exciting new land waiting to be discovered. I am looking back, at the moment, but seeing in that vision, only where the future will take me. Thanks to you all for listening on along the way,
Love Dami xx
COLOUR IS WAITING
And still we will come to lick the honey
from the purple petal and still we will come
to root out the weeds of worthlessness in gardens
where others eat up all that is beautiful. Time turns
and we, in turn, follow its path, suns set and the moon
shows us its song, hold hands and then release,
hold hope and then move on, we only own the moment.
Mothers may still hand over their hearts to other mothers
waiting to be wanted, fathers may rise to be fearless
or choke on the root of their own fear, those black-cloaked
women pouring water from windows onto withered plants,
who’ve buried their living bodies in a bitterness
for all that life has lynched from them, will continue
to cry as flames flicker out along the Seine,
like their memory, revealing structure still standing
but soul no longer settled. They will still pour
their buckets of tears down the aging walls of a city
that cannot see beyond its past. If we cannot catch colour
then we too will be cremated in the concrete. But black
is only shadow until it finds a reason to ignite in light,
bark is dry but the branch bares blossom. Eat the storms,
Mother said, remember? Boil the beds of bitter blackness
until the dream rips through the rain and translucent
turns them lighter, brighter. And still we will come
to that lake where language lingers, still we will sink
beneath its depths to slip ourselves from the reflections
we have once worn and now outgrown. Still we will sink
kisses onto our starved lips and still come back for more
after love catches hold of kisses cradled on other lips.
Catch the colour, catch the kisses, catch the life
racing by in taxis, on trains with crimson carriages
connecting moments waiting to be made magical.
The starry night can be a bright light waiting for us
to paint it. Behold how much there is to love, to let go of,
to learn from. Let us be the design and not just the destruction.
Eat the storms, she said, taste the refreshment in the bright
blue rain. Colour is waiting just beyond the clouds.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
30th and final poem for National Poetry Writing Month 2019
SHADES OF BLUE FEATURED ON EXPLORING COLOUR
Today my poem Shades of Blue is featured on Exploring Colour, the beautiful and inspiring blog from Liz Cowburn; https://exploringcolour.wordpress.com/2019/04/25/shades-of-blue-2/
It is featured alongside a powerful poem of loss and being found from Kay McKenzie Cooke entitled Found. Kay’s blog is https://kaymckenziecooke.com/
and a stunning water-colour painting of blue irises by Jodi McKinney from the blog https://lifeinbetween.me/
Liz has curated this little collection exploring the positivity of the colour blue while sharing two sides of the adoption spectrum with the help of photography from her husband Nigel.
Please take a moment to visit the blogs and explore the beauty and colour of painting, pictures, poetry and precious voices…
Dami X
BLUE MOON
The moon was a blue whisper
and beauty a delirious ache
even the breath could not crush,
a sorrow born in summer
under a sky of shadows.
I picture you;
petrified over a pool of pulsing pain.
I run,
often to leave
before being left.
Like once I was left?
And the moon was a whisper in blue.
I run,
to get away quicker
this time.
Than that time?
When beauty was a delirious ache.
I outrun
not this skin,
not this being I have become
of years and tears and tensions,
but a feeling
that has festered
since I was fostered.
And somewhere still is a sky of shadows.
I leave
through the open door,
somehow left ajar
as if someone
might one day
return through it.
To release the breath that was crushed.
As if someone
might one day remember
what they had left behind
when summer gave birth
to sorrow for a season,
for some still unknown reason.
But what if,
in all that time,
in all that motion,
I have run
too far to be found?
And you remain
in that pulsing pool of pain.
I run
with little thought
to where I am going
but with every effort
to hide what I am too frightened
to find.
The moon was a blue whisper
and beauty a delirious ache
even the breath could not crush.
A sorrow born in summer
under a sky of shadows.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
JOURNEYS, PART 5; IN PARALLEL
—
What if we coexist
CONCURRENTLY,
incredibly?
What if we are dancing through this
DUALITY,
indelibly?
What if we are persons
in parallel,
APART?
What if our only
difference
was our start?
What if there were
CHOICES
in the past, that existed?
What if there were bonds
that held tight,
that RESISTED?
What if FREEDOM
of choice
had been an option?
What if it wasn’t
just the cold word
of ADOPTION?
What if there are two of me
living lives
in PARALLEL,
one born to rules
and the other
to RAISE SOME HELL.
—
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Damien B. Donnelly 