DEEP NOVEMBER
Dark morning, deep November,
low clouds threatening rain.
We sat by the firebox,
slurping tea from a spoon,
she twiddled her hair into
long white snakes,
while arguing with the dead:
blaming Cromwell, deValera,
the Anglosaxonsandjutes.
An unnamed thing stirred at
the pit of the stomach.
Who were they, the long
dead?
I scooted around on my back
the way kids do,
my robe, a red stain on the
gray floor.
The cats hunched up, wanting
in. No, she told us.
A bird banged at the kitchen
sill.
Too much effort to fly, the
air, palpable.
Calm before the storm, my grandmother said.
That knocking is the dead
wanting in.
Shivers up my spine, a ghost
story in the daytime.
The rain sobbing, not God,
but the rain and me
crying—for no earthly
reason.
Dead man walking on your
grave.
Come closer to the fire,
child, she said.
The small sorrows of my
seven years welled up and found a thirst.
The birds and the cats, the
rain and me, all wanting in.
All t’ings come in
t’rees, she warned,
she never could say the T-Haiches
right.
I wanted to undwind her hair
snakes,
and laughed at her loss of “H”es,
Tír na-nÓg, she said in Irish, Land of the ever-young.
And here we are, west of
the west. Samhain.
Be careful, the door to
the otherworld are still open—
She cautioned me: “H” was
the letter of the Lord.
A silent ladder to the
sky. The sound of breath. Inspiration.
I climbed the first leafy
rung. Plucked an apple. The sky breathing.
A knocking at the door. An
scéal? No news is good news.
But the gates were already open.
My drunken uncle burst
through the door,
giggling hysterically,
Did you hear? Kennedy was shot!
My grandmother’s small sob,
played over and over,
her hands fluttering like flocks
of useless birds.
A sacred letter had fallen
from the sky.
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