from firelines (London: Anvil Press Poetry) by Marcus Cumberlege (who self discovered when she was at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, last May)
Children of Lir
Cork of the dark waters
Connaught of the storms
Meath of still pastures
Our triangle, our forms
Everywhere we come from
Everywhere we go
Swans grow sleeves of crimson
The ancient ring-marks show
Ireland is a no-man’s-land
Where dead and living meet
Finola’s ‘flower-stung’ fingers
Knit Pearse’s winding-sheet
Coffin-ships trawl the ocean
And on beds tilled long ago
The shadowy birds of winter
Claw crosses in the snow.
Kanlaon 