Tory Island Images

by Eithne Cavanagh - Dublin (Moore Gold Medal Award Poetry 2001)

Artist's Hut

In the unbelievably blue sphere
of sea and sky she peels an orange

and separates the segments.
Juice splashes the saffron-lichened rocks.

On tiptoe at the artist's hut
she sees a moth trapped behind grimy glass,

a tub of pollyfilla, empty coat hangers
pillows, their ticking all torn.

Linseed oil, paintbrushes stiff with disuse
seem to wait for his ghost

to sweep across canvas
capture the vastness, release the moth.

Legends

Etching the skyline Errigal, Muckish
are robed in bleached denim haze.

Her world is fragrant with ozone and pollen
faded seapinks flutter papery shells.

Chough, cormorants and gulls wheel
by crags unchanged since one-eyed Balor

imprisoned his daughter for daring to love,
or since Columcille blessed a handful of clay.

She finishes her orange, zest scenting the blue
with hints of Morocco, 'African Mariners',

pirates of legend and poem.
She dreams ships laden with gold, spices and silk.

A moth wings past her head,
like a spirit following flight to infinity.

The Ceili

At midnight or so the music starts.
Patsy Dan's accordion sets toes a-twitching.

The Waves of Tory and the Stack of Barley
undulate around the hall.

A sixteen-hand reel gains momentum,
its rhythms spiralling into time.

The human whirligig spins faster, faster
while a bodhran speeds up the beat.

Music spilling out over her head,
she dances towards the lighthouse beam

to the fringe of the world where the artist's hut
stands black and angled against the moon.