jharpur

Ciaran O'Driscoll

BROTHER WHATNOT

Having been kicked out unrecognised
by the Guardian of his Friary
and cudgel-beaten back into the evening,
would Francis have experienced Perfect Joy

if he lay staring at this small red van
jutting from a stonemason’s arched portal
in a merging of time’s ample acreage?
Surely he’d ease himself up gingerly

and welcome Brother Whatnot to his fold,
not needing the red van to have a meaning
versed as he was in actualities:
wetness of wet and leafyness of leaves,

trail’s happenstance and settingness of sun,
the lilies of the field that do not spin.

Ciaran O'Driscoll lives in Limerick. A member of Aosdána, he has published ten books of poetry, the most recent of which is Angel Hour (2021). He has also published a childhood memoir and two novels, the second of which is The Golden Ass (Limerick Writers’ Centre, 2024). He has received a number of awards including the James Joyce Prize (1989) and the Kavanagh Fellowship (2000). Vecchie Donne di Magione, published by Volumnia Editrice, is a dual language edition of his fourth collection, The Old Women of Magione (1997), with Italian translations by Rita Castigli.
Ciaran is married to MARGARET FARRELLY, who is a traditional musician.

James Harpur

Angels and Harvesters

As thoughts arrive
From god knows where,
Or sun breaks through
A fraying cloud
Emboldening a patch
Of tree, or grass,
They just appeared
From nowhere
Among the harvesters
The field a world
Of cutting, gathering,
Cutting, gathering.
Their outlines sometimes
Flickering brighter,
They walked between
The bending figures
Curious
Pausing to watch,
Like ancestors
Almost remembering
The world they’d left,
Or foreigners
Amused to see
The same things done.
They moved around
Unseen by all –
Unless one glimpsed,
Perhaps, light thicken,
A glassy movement,
As air can wobble
On summer days.
And then they went
Walked into nothing
Just left the world
Without ceremony
Unless it was
The swish of scythes
The swish of scythes.

Angeli e mietitori

Come pensieri arrivano
Dio solo sa da dove,
O il sole s’apre un varco
Tra nubi sfilacciate
Animando una macchia
Di alberi o di erba,
Così anche loro apparvero
Dal nulla
Fra i mietitori
Il campo un mondo
Di tagliare, raccogliere
Di tagliare, raccogliere.
I loro contorni a volte
Guizzando più splendenti,
Camminarono in mezzo
Alle figure chine
Incuriositi
Fermandosi a osservare,
Come progenitori
Che quasi si rammentano
Del mondo che lasciarono,
O stranieri
Divertiti al vedere
Fare le stesse cose.
Lì in giro vagarono
Invisibili a tutti –
Tranne a chi non notasse,
Forse, la luce addensarsi,
Un moto trasparente
Come aria che tremola
In un giorno d’estate.
E dopo se ne andarono
Svanirono nel nulla
Il mondo abbandonarono
Senza gran convenevoli
A meno che non fosse
Il fruscio delle falci
Il fruscio delle falci.

traduzione: Francesca Diano

James Harpur lives in West Cork and is interested in spirituality, myth and medieval history. He has published ten poetry collections and is a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of arts. He has won many awards for his poetry, including the 1995 British National Poetry Competition. His books include The Gospel of Gargoyle (2025); The Magic Theatre (2025), a verse memoir of his student days in the late 1970s; The Examined Life (2021), an odyssey through boarding school, winner of the Vincent Buckley Prize; The White Silhouette (2018); Angels and Harvesters (2012) a PBS Recommendation and shortlisted for the 2013 Irish Times Award; and The Dark Age (2007), winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize.. A selection of his poems was translated into Italian by Francesca Diano and published as Il vento e la creta (Molesini Editore Venezia, 2023).