StAnza Presents...

Éadaoín Lynch

Boireann

Exposed as the crown of a balding head,

The Burren persists. Its great stage

Has seen more aging than this—

Mollusc and ammonite riveted

In its face as fossils. Your feet are

On an ocean floor carved up by

Glacial ice, but this rock sinks

So deep no water can follow;

Archives of abandoned living.

Wind covers the Burren with its breath

And on rare days, it lifts.

On rare days, it lifts. Like a pause

In music, a note suspended between

One bow stroke and the next.

Trees don’t thrive in six inches of topsoil,

The westerly gales make sure of that.

But, when trees do grow—

Whittled thickets and hollowed crowns

Bent double on ancient stone, parallel

To earth. As if they do not age,

They simply lean further

And further down. Locals say

They shelter fairy folk. We hear

Their laughter when we play a jig.

Our rhythm is a dance

Through the branches.

I stood at the edge of Dún Aengus

And looked into the abyss of the sea.

What once was a stronghold now

Slowly eaten by a yawning maw,

Fierce and stormy water.

Close to an edge of awe and terror,

A deep wheel that comes to a stop—

I lose gravity in that sudden drop,

That creeping freefall, before I fall asleep.

For now it’s no more than a minor key,

Pulled from my mind like roots.

Sing an aisling along the road to mark it.

I was told our music was born

From the landscape. Phrasing,

The way the stresses fall, is

How we move along the limestone,

Living between one bow stroke and the next.

Éadaoín Lynch is an Irish poet based in Edinburgh, leading the Creative Scotland project, Re·creation: A Queer Poetry Anthology. They have previously been shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize and the London Magazine Poetry Prize. Their most recent work is forthcoming in the Fawn Press anthology Elements.

StAnza brings poetry to audiences and enables encounters with poetry through events and projects in Scotland and beyond, especially their annual spring festival in St Andrews.

www.stanzapoetry.org