As you read this, the words that mark the page
will detach themselves one by one and fly away.
Read on. The town hall clock has been stopped for years.
You can tell the time by the howling and the cheers
from the children in the playground beside the school,
then the sudden silence lasting all afternoon.
(The lady five doors away who used to complain
about the children’s noise is safely in her grave.)
When you read this, consider writing down
the date and, as the light allows, the hour
when the page goes suddenly blank, and the world slows down,
so you can calculate how much time must have gone
since the child ran in the trampled schoolyard space
where, still, the younger surviving sister of the late
Lord Mayor of Cork, who died in Brixton jail,
headed the republican school in Belgrave Place.
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork in 1942, and is fellow emeritus, TCD. Her most recent collection is The Map of the World (Gallery Press, 2023). Selected Poems appeared in 2025
will detach themselves one by one and fly away.
Read on. The town hall clock has been stopped for years.
You can tell the time by the howling and the cheers
from the children in the playground beside the school,
then the sudden silence lasting all afternoon.
(The lady five doors away who used to complain
about the children’s noise is safely in her grave.)
When you read this, consider writing down
the date and, as the light allows, the hour
when the page goes suddenly blank, and the world slows down,
so you can calculate how much time must have gone
since the child ran in the trampled schoolyard space
where, still, the younger surviving sister of the late
Lord Mayor of Cork, who died in Brixton jail,
headed the republican school in Belgrave Place.
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork in 1942, and is fellow emeritus, TCD. Her most recent collection is The Map of the World (Gallery Press, 2023). Selected Poems appeared in 2025
