CÉILIDH

By SIOBHAN HARVEY

Morning

Outside, autumn turns over
as the beat of a bodhran
Winter’s coming, winter’s coming, winter’s coming

Morning builds. Like a reel,
the first heat arrives, and with it,
leaves fall, dead bees, a cortege.

The slowstep into church is accompanied
by an organist and weeping in the pews.
Later, a feast, a céilidh. Far off, bells toll. 

*

Afternoon

Bells peel far away. A feast and céilidh await
like an organist and weeping in the pews.
The dance into church begins.

The cortege is bright as bees.
The bride arrives late. Heat reels
in the end of the day.

Winter’s coming, winter’s coming, winter’s coming
we say, smoking outside. To a bodhran’s beat,
the bride and groom begin their turn.

CÉILIDH

Related Posts

Filipino immigrants at a farm labor camp

The Ghost of Jack Radovich 

TERESA B. WILSON-GUNN
Mama saw her boss, Jack Radovich, standing in her row during a sweltering San Joaquin afternoon. She was picking table grapes alone when he suddenly appeared, several yards away, gazing off in the direction of the blue-gray Sierra mountains.

Jim Guy as a child with his family of adults and children

Fruit Tramps, Moving On

JIM GUY
A fruit tramp family of the 1930s stayed in many places for short periods of time. We arrived, picked the crop, and moved on. That’s why we were called tramps, nomads, and many other things not nearly as complimentary.

The Ala Wai Canal Fish Ate Grandpa’s Spit

ANNA CABE
This is not a metaphor. Was it before his funeral? During? After? But, whichever time, my sister and I recollected how, the first time we went to my grandparents’ beloved Hawaii, we strolled with Grandpa by the Ala Wai Canal, a wide polluted channel which bounds and drains Waikiki.