Ronnie McGinn's Poetry Page

Carole Spearin McCauley of Hanover, New Hamshire is glad to discover the Irish Examiner again. When she lived around New York and worked in Manhattan, she bought and read copies and took them to Fordham, where her brother-in-law is a Jesuit.

She thanks us for our attention to poetry and sent a brief poem, "Moira -Safe at Aunt's House." It was inspired by an Irish woman whom she met during a book research trip in Iceland, where she worked. Indeed, she's about the most hopeful - and lyrical - person Carole ever met. In our current nonfiction, sound-bite culture, sounding poetic - as the Irish can - is a jewel to treasure and the "community connector" by which all of us can share experiences.

Carole is a medical writer/editor, the author of 12 books, both nonfiction and mystery novels. Her short work (poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, reviews) has appeared in about 200 periodicals, anthologies, and online sites.

Seven pieces and a photo have won prizes in national or international contests that include USA Today (haiku) and Radio Netherlands Worldwide (humorous verse about human cloning). Four chapters of her latest novel ms., How She Saved Her Life, appear soon in North Atlantic Review (Stonybrook, Long Island). She earned a recent M.A. in writing at Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY.

Charley Plays a Tune

The girl treads the street's cobbles.
Behind her, windows shuttered - blank
against gray-grim lid of sky. Sea wind blows snow tonight.

The girl leaves that house of stones and bones
where Mam shrinks and Da sulks in drink... again.
Eight bairns there, babying down the cradle.
The girl scrunches her face,
hunches inside only-coat's velvet collar, one button yet undone.

The girl's cold hand clutches coins saved in pocket
from Mam's biscuit box. Bus man needs them
to deliver Moira - safe at Aunt's house.

"Being no warmer of benches, I never sat
hand-idle. What Eye doesn't see,
Heart doesn't grieve - at first.
Left that farm on its sea-cliff, stopped with my aunt,
did teacher's college, parish-work here in Iceland.
When the marriage wheel spun, I side-stepped.
Better lang-loose than ill-tethered, I say.

"But I do miss home-that great domain of sky and stone,
wind-cold tracks against the sky. Ah, Ireland's old
as the world's old. How Mam said, 'God loves you, girl,
and you can sit on cold hands.'
I'll sail home some day. No matter winter's frost, if summer's gold awaits
back at Aunt's house."

© Carole Spearin McCauley