Sunday 23 April 2017

Black Shamrock (Shammerdoo): A Poem

By Patrick Slevin

Dermot Healy wrote – ‘We forget what we owe to what we’ve forgotten till we encounter it again out of the corner of the eye, in passing.’ 

Shammerdoo (Seamir Dubh) is a townland near Kilkelly in county Mayo. Its meaning is black sorrel, or shamrock.



BLACK SHAMROCK (SHAMMERDOO)

Image used with kind permission of the Connolly family

I never knew him. Not the black and white
Young man. Not the Kodachrome old. With the 
Good wall behind him and the dog. The face
Ringed with lines like the map of his hill, breezes
From Paul Henry skies. 

Image used with kind permission of the Connolly family

  The grass doesn’t grow
In the mud from Mary Anne’s where he walked
Every day, only cloven prints now outlined
By green dew, and purples and blues clawing 
Out from old stones. 

We search to stoke fires with 
Burnt tongs. 
        Your past and our future collide
In the present behind this barbed wire 
Lock. 
           It reeks of the fields in here.

Old jacket still hanging behind the old 
Door. Springs erupt from the mattress, unslept
And rotted with rust. You say no to opening
The flea ridden hag curtain, the doll’s house

Image: © Patrick Slevin

He built you sits still on the floor. Rain briefly
Cracks on the wrought orange roof but the sleep
In this stead carries on, like all those days
Before. You remind me there was ten of 

Them once fractioned in these three rooms. I 
Stand in a doorway, it comes up to my 
Neck, I almost sit down in his chair for a
Picture, by the damp dresser, by the green

Image: © Patrick Slevin

And red tiles, clinging under the mantel,
Where a flat Christmas card warns about
Turkey, your mother’s handwriting fades in
Those misty old wishes. We both try to 

Say that sweet Irish proverb, under the
White horse and trap, holding it at angles
To the tiny window, 
later we learn 
It reads ‘Made in Japan’. 

    By some leaning
Brown bottles we pick up the tongs and
Think of the fire, the other side of the 
Hill. You sit on the remains, gently, of 
The good wall, for a minute, it all doesn’t 

© Carmel Slevin
Seem that long ago now. I raise the tongs,
Like in Zulu, and we turn in the sun,
Shining over Shammer, treading backwards,
As fields swarm round the Callaghan place.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Text: © Patrick Slevin



Patrick Slevin lives in Stockport. He has been writing poems and stories for many years.







Patrick wrote 'Black Shamrock (Shammerdoo)' for Manchester Irish Writers' event, 'Echoes of Ireland', performed at the Irish World Heritage Centre Manchester on 9 March 2017. 


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