Shelmalier.
by Medb Mc Guckian.
“Looked after only by the four womb-walls,
if anything curved in the ruined city his last hour
it was his human hands, bituminous, while all laws
were aimed at him, returning to the metre of a star:
like a century about to be over, a river trying
to film itself, detaching its voice from itself,
he qualified the air of his own dying,
his brain in folds like the semi-open rose of grief.
His eyes recorded calm and keen this exercise,
deep-seated, promising-avenues, they keep their
…kingdom:
it is I who am only just left in flight, exiled
into an outline of time, I court his speech, not him.
This great estrangement has the destination of a
…rhyme.
The trees of his heart breathe regular, in my dream. “
from, The Making of a Sonnet, a Norton Anthology. Eds ,Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland. Published 2008.
- Bio link for Medb McGuckian http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/McGuckian.html
- The Dream Language of Fergus here : http://poethead.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/the-dream-language-of-fergus-medbh-mc-guckian/
Chris Murray 