Driftwood

By Mary Ellen Fean

‘These poems travel from the familiar across borders; they are poems of dispossession, of starting over, of fragile ordinary details and depths, written with a natural elegance; they are times poignant, arresting , unsettling..... – Clare Sawtell

• Language: English
• Publisher: Limerick Writers Centre
• Release date: Oct 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005772475

Mary Ellen Fean

MARY ELLEN FEAN was born in Galway and now lives in Co. Clare. Her work has been published in Cyphers, The SHOp, The Clare Champion, Revival, The Galway Review, among others, and broadcast on Clare FM radio. She was shortlisted for The Desmond O’Grady poetry prize in 2014. She has read her work widely, including at Limerick’s White House Poetry Theatre, The Forge at Gort festival, Galway Fringe Festival, and at The Dean Crowe Theatre, Athlone. She is currently working on her first collection.

Book preview

It’s late August, the garden past its

prime, the season spent, little birds

flitting through the current bushes

disturb the quietness.

A delivery of logs has lain in the yard

a week now, bleaching in the sun, the

yearly task of gathering in, storing

up for winter must begin.

We work together, laying a solid base

against the garden fence, the earth hard

from a long dry spell, stacking the pale,

dried wood tight, tidy.

An hour or more goes by like this, the

pile growing higher, wider, the silence

between us growing heavier, all that is

unsaid, the words hover over us.

The sun lowers itself behind the old pines,

a fox gives itself away in the undergrowth.

The year rounding out with this last task,

and winter is unimaginable.

INSOMNIA

Dawn arrives at last, it’s pale light

streaking the sky, a jumble of birds

assemble in the old pines, sounding

the first notes, a book marked with

a grocery bill, along with sleep is

abandoned.

The girls next door come home, high

heels scrape the pavement, a clatter

of voices, the door shuts,