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      March 27, 2023AfterJane Clarke

      Now that her heart is bent over
      like larkspur after a storm,
       
      she stays in bed past milking time,
      pulling the quilt
       
      tight around her shoulders
      until her collie barks her
       
      down the stairs
      to lift the backdoor latch.
       
      She kneels to light the cipeens
      piled on last night’s embers.
       
      Her bones creak
      like the bolt on the door of the barn.
       
      A cup of oats, two cups of water,
      a pinch of salt—
       
      porridge, tea and tablets,
      a meal for a queen.
       
      Every day without him
      is too long;
       
      she’s waiting
      with the tired cows at the gate.

      from #79 - Spring 2023

      Jane Clarke

      “Though I didn’t write my first poem until I was 41, poetry has been part of my life since childhood on a farm in the West of Ireland. The rhythms, imagery, and language of Yeats, Kavanagh, and also Frost and Dickinson resonated with the world around me. When I began to write it was as if I had found an underground stream waiting to come into the light. I write for the pleasure and struggle of finding the words that will sing.”

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