Connemara Girl

Augustus Burke

Connemara Girl 

She is of the mountain, her backdrop beauty:

purple mountain, blue ocean, green marbled rocks.

Beauty will not feed or sustain her small frame
hidden beneath her tattered shawl, poor girl

not yet woman. Her feet are bare, but underfoot,
summer’s heather is kind and soft as the tale
her eyes might tell, if they were inclined to speak.

Gazing hard, she keeps her feelings close, moods
like clouds, forever transient; beloved

beasts protect her back, four-footed, or fowls
of the air, she is their familiar.

They too may one day starve and die like the
Connemara girl who seems to be already
gleaning what may lie ahead. Ancient wisdom
 lies within her, wrapped in heartfelt language,
washed with tears; ancestors sing a sacred song,

a sometimes dirge, a sometimes prayer, a sometimes
vision of eternity, an oft-times song
of love. You may catch its strains across the land,

for it frames the mountains and rides the waves.

In times of stillness you may hear it,deep
and haunting, like an Irish serenade.

Cait O’Connor