Ciara Considine: Features

Olive-skinned with plaited dark hair,
Her hollow cheeks, a shadow of the Great Hunger,
Her skirt once swung to the rhythm of her smile,
Her darting eyes - sparks of her fiery pride.

For she had such promise, yet ne’er became a mother,
She dreamt of all those cities and towns
Where husbands are found
As she tended her hens and tilled the muddy land
In her cold, hard boots.

For yet another year, she missed the fair
In Lisdoonvarna town,
A candle in hand, she knelt in prayer
At the side of her fevered brother
Where she remained alone, amidst her books
Yearning, wondering - how must it feel
To know a loving man’s hand?

She did well to tread the brittle path of a life
Somehow lost in serving,
She never asked why, not once did she shy
From God’s call to love and to give,
Her sister’s children rose each day
To the bread she’d baked that dawn,
She’d proudly watch as they ate and laughed,
And studied and married and left.

Many did not understand her, stubborn,
Awkward and tough seemed she,
Her knuckles tired, her shawl thread-bare,
Her shoulders, hunched with age,
Disconnected she grew as time robbed her hearing
And decades laughed and passed her by.

But somewhere still in this green, lush land
Lies her hen-shed, a relic of stone
And tread her great-nephews remembering her name
As grass springs anew.
And what of this creature who so silently loved?
On hearing His whisper one morn as she woke,
Turned to the wall and died.
- An unsung crusade of ninety-six years.


(For 'Aunty-Anne' 1898-1994)



Back to top