Cathy Galvin

Ethnology
 
 
Smelling of earth and ethanol,
the scholar with soft leather gloves 
lifted my head from a box 
lined with velvet, unpacked 
my skull on a polished desk,
 
took the measure of me,
this other species,
when are bones no longer our own?
Could not bring himself to touch 
the shreds of flesh on my nose.
 
I had waited for the moon 
to rise over rocks 
where I searched for seals, their singing 
making me pause 
                                            at Trinity 
wait for letters written to the Provost 
that may yet bring me home 
to turf, stones, lines of tourists.
 
When there was flesh 
on my childhood I walked 
the cow road to the cliff edge, 
lifted blue eggs where they rested 
on the ground, warm in my hands. 
Placed them in a box 
as treasure. Knowing they were where they would not crack 
 
into flight.
 
 
*
 
 
Walls 
 
 
There’s no anvil, brooch, harrow-pin. 
The currach’s broken, walls stand without a roof.
All that’s left: a bureau containing bills, 
cards, scarves, a Will. 
 
You’re not in view but I can hear a breath
– the well-made dress and phrase.
My made things broke long ago.
They had little purchase on this world.
The creed, letters I do not read.
Solid seem the things that slip away.
Leaving us bone.
 
We stake a claim, lay foundations,
build and watch it fall.
Within, the comforts that ease survival.
We cut back wilderness, tame, contain 
sycamore, birch, bramble, willow, grass.
All return.
 
Our walls come down, consolations go.
We do not come back. Take away it all
and what is left is who we are.
Our homes are built to go.
 
 
*
 
 
from Rough Translation
 
 
Child. Listen. Once, I rowed you towards the island. I pulled the boat up onto the beach. You took my hand as we made our way along a track towards the crossroads. Where the path rises up from the harbour, we looked down over slabs of granite, across fields to mountains. We saw grasses dotted with wild flowers and the hidden eggs of seabirds, a shallow lake, a seashore of oystercatchers.  
 
          Are there ghosts on the island? you asked. 
          I said: You go your way. And they go theirs. 
 
You will never speak my words for earth, sea or wind and I can no longer taste them. Your song won’t hold my tune, only theirs. My dreams are in English. Words for something better than a tongue dipped in salt and earth. They will want you to succeed but never more than them. 
 
          put your shoulders back 
 
Between your finger and your thumb, there’s no skill for knitting. My needles, in your right hand, have been digging me out of the grave for fifty years. The squat pen rests in your left. When you use these tools, are you a traitor, a fraud or a fool? 
 
          stop skulking behind 
 
I thought of you today, the way our narrow bones begin to flex and crack with all that time drags to the floor. The pull of bags, children, body. The ball bearing down on neck, spine. 
 
          like an orphan. 
 
 
*
 
 
Belly of the House 
 
 
Crossing your threshold, time after time,
I believed your buried mouth,
its falling walls and gaping hearth, had lost its tongue.
 
That your soft language was too hard to learn,
though a little application proved me wrong, 
crossing your threshold, time after time. 
 
Through the door I saw abandoned ships,
a blackbird in the ash, a spinning-wheel unspun.
I believed your buried mouth
 
had been opened by the enemy, in not-so-secret ways,
to force-feed you silence, hunger and isolation,
crossing your threshold, time after time.
 
That you had sent me back to them, in the belly of a horse,
to surprise them at their game, learn their imperial ways. 
I believed your buried mouth; I speak with foreign words. 
 
From the belly of the house, feel a breath 
of singing in the eyes of empty windows. 

9  Introduction
11  Preface: Title Deed 
 
Book One: Specimens
15  Island Road 
16  Blunt Needles 
17  I Collect 
18  Boat People
19  Physiography: 1
20  Dusk
21  Women Come to Find Me 
22  Hawk
23  Physiography: 2
24  Snow 
25  Na Ceachtanna: Lessons
30  Adúirt mo Mhamó 
31  An Ghaeltacht 
32  Place Names 
33  Starlings 
35  From the Kitchen on the Edge
36  Back Tonight to a  Deserted House: 1
37  Back Tonight to a Deserted House: 2
38  Back Tonight to a Deserted House: 3
39  Saint’s Toolkit 
40  Warming the Bones 
41  Adúirt mo Mhamó Arís
43  Walls 
44  Ethnology
 
Book Two: Mother
47  Waters Break
48  Rough Translation
51  What They Say to a Child 
52  Guy’s Hospital, London
53  Straight Lines
54  Source 
55  Bríd
56  Caoineadh
58  Swell 
59  Credo
 
Book Three: Love Songs of Connacht
63  Mythology
68  Crow
69  Body of the Boat 
70  Anraith
72  Man at Rosroe
73  At the Michael Hartnett Festival
74  Folklore Collector 
76  Belly of the House
77  Joe 
78  The Singer’s Centenary: Carna 
80  Coventry Carol
81  Shells 
82  Playwrights 
83  Cromwellian
84  Turn to the Wall 
 
Book Four: Son
87  Before 
88  Samhain
89  After
97  Old Woman 
 
99  Notes & Acknowledgements
111  Biographical note