Two elegies, by Cork poet laureate William Wall
Thomas Kinsella and Cara O’Sullivan.
always in winter
or so it seems
another December
and there before you
is a low dark coast
at Roches Point
the ghost of an ocean
vanishing into rain
as close as we’ll get
to saying goodbye
fair Ellinor awaits
at your landfall
there is fever now
that eats everything
you said it yourself
out of a brooding sky
the savage birds
the shadow eaters
and the winding light
your
Christmas morning
a lifelong atheist
driving his mother-in-law
to hear Cara sing O Holy Night
the voice of the sky itself
a blackbird
silvering a still dawning
her song inhabits the air
in the dark of winter
nell’ora del dolore
a polar frost
settling the wind from Greenland
whistling down the ages
lightly come or lightly go
you tell me
as though we have a choice
late at night I drive
through the empty city
even the river is listening
Cara diva we miss you
this Christmas more than others
the silence is hard
William Wall is a poet from Cork, and is serving as the city's first Poet Laureate. An initiative of the Munster Literature Centre that is funded by Cork City Council, Wall's role involves writing a poem every month, giving a personal response to issues in the city and county. The Irish Examiner publishes these poems, and the works will also be collected into a chapbook to be launched at Cork World Book Festival 2022.
