Poem of the week: On the Road to Episkopi

On the Road to Episkopi

The first crows I encounter

are on the road to Episkopi,

that red dirt track that climbs

The Poems of Dorothy Molloy: lost jewels rescued

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Five Irish Women: The second republic, 1960-2016: A well-written, clever, very useful book

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The Catholic Church and the Northern Ireland Troubles: A seminal book

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Chronicling a year of big events and quirky little things

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above the yard of tired boats.

They rise out of the olive grove,

not as a wake or warning

but as a welcome sight.

Their hoarse and sun-dried gnawing

reminds of dawn disturbers

in our garden in the rain.

And then they flap and fall and flap again,

four loose, black flags against the blue.

Welcome, friend, they seem to say

and I reply in kind.

John MacKenna’s most recent works are The Mental, a one-man play, and Between Your Love and Mine, a Requiem Mass developed with the late Leonard Cohen

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