Mary O’Donnell
Liz McSkeane
Maurice Devitt
Anne Tannam has published three poetry collections, Take This Life (Wordonthestreet Publishers 2011), Tides Shifting Across My Sitting Room Floor (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and ‘Twenty-six Letters of a New Alphabet’ (Salmon Poetry, 2021). She is the current Poet in Residence with Poetry Ireland (2023-2025). She was awarded a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland in 2022 and from Dublin City Council in 2023. For more on her poetry, visit www.annetannampoetry.ie. Anne is also a Professional Certified Coach who helps writers design and sustain flourishing writing practices. For the past 35 years she’s mentored and facilitated and regularly runs workshops and clinics nationwide and internationally. For more on Anne’s coaching, visit www.creativecoaching.ie
Glimmer
After Ada Limón
The Japanese have a word for it—komorebi,
the play of sunlight filtering through leaves.
This morning the tree outside our house
is almost too beautiful to look at; the turning leaves,
red berries, flickering patterns of light.
On my run, the leggings’ waistband presses
against my soft belly, reminding me to keep
a steady pace. Everywhere autumn is shimmering;
trees in Brickfield Park jog slowly past, crunch
and slick of leaves underfoot, slant of light
between the houses. Along the canal
from Golden Bridge to Blackhorse, all life
contained in secret code: seven swans preening
beside a clump of reeds; a heron rising,
wingspan measuring distance from bank to bank;
a moorhen, its red, yellow-tipped beak,
lime green spindle legs, its sheer moor hen-ness.
And everywhere, evidence of our careless nature:
dogshit, cans, plastic wrappers; a wheel,
half covered, glints from under the bridge.
It’s my birthday today, and I’m on the lookout
for some sign that all this multiplicity is mapping
a story that’s more than the sum of its moving parts.
I pass the cemetery, feet following a small path
under a line of trees. I breathe them in,
they breathe me in. Hidden by their leaves,
along the length of the wall are graffiti runes
and the single word Soar—
is this the sign I’ve been looking for?
Or is it closer to the waters’ rippling edge;
a breathless, aging woman,
by a canal, indestructible?
At eighteen I knew nothing
of death and dying, so when a girl from college
told me three of her brothers had drowned
alongside five others, eight bodies in all
recovered from Doolin Bay,
eight lads not much older than I was then,
just down for a weekend music festival,
a scorcher of a day, the sea within shouting distance—
I didn’t have the language, didn’t know the words,
never thought to ask her brothers’ names.
A Reasonable Request
She’s free to go anywhere
she desires in the castle—
except one little room.
One small room off-limits.
That’s not much to ask.
One little room.
Everywhere else she is free to go.
Everything else is hers to enjoy:
endless rooms to decorate as she pleases,
beautiful gardens to explore with friends.
See how much he is willing to give her.
See how far he is willing to go.
One little room.
Not too much to ask.
Never mind his terrible beard.
Never mind the rest of the story.
Poems Copyright © Anne Tannam 2021