In Memory of Tommy

On the one year anniversary of his death, this poem:

An Fear Draíochta

For Tommy Peoples, Donegal-born Irish fiddler (1948-2018)

  

He tucks his fiddle under his chin,

then brings the bow.

From the first notes

there’s a shock of naked sound,

music released from blood

and breath – silver flash of a

trout wrenched from a lake,

streaming bright water.

Tommy’s fixed gaze rests on

the fiddle’s neck while his

fingers press and release. He

sits very still, the wildness

in him moving only the bow.

Weeping, cajoling, a bird flutters

from branch to branch, trilling from

a tree’s highest limbs. Pause, then

a refrain erupts from deep in 

recesses of blossom and leaf.

At dusk, from shadowed hedges

drifts a last homing chant.

Where are you?

Where are you?

            Enchantment tiptoes among us

            as we listen, as morning fog

            creeps inland from the sea

            to cross stone and grass.

            Salt-laden, story-laden, it

            joins the grazing cattle, mingles

            with the steam of their hides.

           

Portrait of Tommy by Martin Fox of Asheville, NC

Cliffs of Moher Photo by Mark de Jong on Unsplash

Poem copyright Cathy Larson Sky  (August 4, 2019)

Turning

~ for Patrick

It was the elegant way his hair swelled from his temples,

fell to frame the broad rock of his forehead, the way

his teeth clamped on a cigar, there at the lathe while curls

of rosewood dropped to the floor, helpless and fragrant,

black cinders of ebony flew up and speckled his beard, and

those goggles he wore, the imprints they left above his ears.

            Strangeness I could sink into like a long bath.

It was the click of his old house’s black iron latches,

twist of the narrow stairs that disclosed the upstairs

as a country apart from the rooms below. And it

was the dark third floor landing under the eaves,

with its dank, sprung love seat, the busy desperation

of squirrels trapped between the floorboards. It was

when he asked me to stay for breakfast -- overdone

scrambles, toast, on a chipped plate. I sipped black

coffee while, from the roof, a whippoorwill turned

its mad song like a wheel, circling, almost shouting.

Copyright Cathy Larson Sky (poem first appeared in Pinesong, North Carolina Poetry Society Awards, 2019) Photo of Patrick by Cathy Larson Sky. Whipporwill by eBird.

Moon Speaks

In the rhyme, the cow jumps over me,

her udder wagging a milk milk rain.

A blasted cat saws music on a violin.

A little mongrel snickers, a dish elopes

with a piece of flatware. It’s not easy

being confined by nursery twaddle.

Know who I am.

I pull and the sea rises to meet. Gulls,

pelicans fly low, looking for a quick

fish, schools of plenty. On the other

side of Earth, oceans swell, expand,

strain to escape gravity. What push-

pull there is in me. What tit for tat.

I’m that urge that dissolves, as butter

slides, into nooks and crannies of a break-

fast crumpet, its tiny hollows designed

to net desires. If you like, smear with

raspberry, cherry, currant jams. Eat.

Delicious with tea and cream.

Come.

Slip into my blue-tinted shadows, into

the fable of you. Whisper spider web

riddles and water spells, read messages

in wet stones. Count your unborn grand-

children in the lines of your palm.

Mornings, wash your face in the dew,

find luminous new ways to be.

Hope’s a white kitten chasing its tail.

Look.

A pale rose sprouts between your brows.

Poem copyright cathy larson sky 2019
Photo credits:

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash     The full yellow mooon

Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer on Unsplash   The jam on toast

Photo by michael podger on Unsplash   The spider web

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash  The rose