Poetry and Reflections by Josephine Purcell – with a sprinkling As Gaeilge

Cuach – Cuckoo

Cloisim an cuach is mé ag dul ar siúl aon tráthnóna ceomhar misteach san Earrach.

(I hear the Cuckoo as I go on a misty mystic walk in an evening in Spring.)

Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo cuckoo.

Distinct four note call.

Distant on a misty April evening.

Coming from the woods

Stopped me in my tracks

Its clarion call, evoked memories,

heard en the Burren

As we lay on the Green Road

Up from Ballyvaughan

Gazing at the sky

One warm May Evening

Stealer of tests, roving

home wrecker,

Nature provides for all.

Interwoven – Intertwined

Bhí siad fite fuaite go minic sna blianta speisialta dúinn

(They were often intertwined in the special years for us.)

Betwist and Between

Twill never be seen

How fate moved them closer

The friends who

joked, played and had fun

When they moved in next door.

Interwoven daily

Intertwined forever

Cillíní – Cells

Na páistí beaga sa talamh, fuar, dorcha, gan beannachtaí na heaglaise.

(The little children in the ground without the blessings of the church.)

A recognised class of Irish Archaeological

monuments that were reset as a designated burial place

among the Roman Catholic population

ha páistí, beoga, BeannachtíJan talamh, fuas drocha zan an Seipéal

(Oh children, alive, Blessings on earth, even the bad in the Church)

Lying cold in unmarked graves. Innocent pure unblemished babies

Condemned to never see the light

Because of manmade laws,

an unforgiving dictum

not of Divine following

Injustice laid on innocence

The herd following blindly

A dark age of ignorance

May they now move

to a brighter place

Enshrined in Everlasting Glory

Josephine Purcell is a member of Inklings Writing Group, who meet on Tuesdays at 11am and on Wednesdays at 7.30pm in the Annebrook House Hotel. Mullingar. Aspiring and fun writers welcome.