Rooskey

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Song Notes

by Eileen Casey.

I heard those first waves of that long mournful song
there in McCann’s in Rooskey. The Master Butcher
curdled it through his mouth as he sliced into
the hind quarters of a swinging cow.
Singing and slicing, as if the shop were full of gauzy dresses
a ballroom on hooks no less, and not pale carcasses.
I was a lad then, long and lean
with a full head of hair and a full set of teeth,
the blue glaze of the Shannon in my eyes,
my heart light as a breeze, not yet burdened
by the weight of that song churning up the Atlantic
like furrows after a plough.
I took McCann’s song into my belly and it lodged
at the back of my throat though I never understood
the melancholy soar of it
until I too left Rooskey. Like centuries of emigrants before,
bhi mo chroi faoi bron.
I brought the tune over the sea and like the others
bhi gach gnathog agus sraid packed into my suitcase
the bridges and mosses of hearth and home,
blatha agus leicin, scraws of bramble
thick hedgerows, oak and juniper
wrapped tight in soft tissue
taken out on Sundays for heart’s ease
for walking back through the streets of Rooskey, to hear
skitters of water hens in the rushes along the riverside
for letting out breath like the steam of a train
or the oar of a boat dimpling the waters
under a sky broad as the backs of the men in New York
or Cricklewood, building brick upon brick
strange notes like wild birds filling the song
that spiralled back across the sea.
In Cricklewood I went down the Saturday markets
to feel part of something, to look shyly at girls
dressed in drindle skirts, their legs
white as the swans on the Shannon.
Fuair m’athar bas and I came home
swinging in like a crane
over Rooskey. My father was put in the ground
beside my mother in the lonely month of January.
Bhi bron ar gach ein sa spear.
I threw a few handfuls of clay on the wood
and it sounded for me the final note of a long mournful tune
here in Rooskey
where the song first began.

Winner of Síar Scéal Festival "Ship of Tears" Competition 2009. Sponsored by Roscommon Library Services.

© Eileen Casey 2009. Used with permission.
 

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