Month: November 2024

Floating in cloud. Occasionally it gets clear and I can see you, hear what you’re saying. But not often. Where have I been these years? Lost even to myself. Tortured by barbed guilt of a bitter pleasure tasted years ago. Twisted, I scarcely know myself. Lost in layers. Seeking release from this place. How?

They told me us Protestants don’t go to purgatory. Heaven or Hell. But where else can this be? Tormented to make sense of it.  “Move on.” I hear in a million echoes. God, please make it simple – a car crash, a heart attack? A clean end. Unanswered, it tortures me. Was my sin so great? That of my ancestors?

If he came to my door, I could not open it to him. If he claimed me on the street, I couldn’t look him in the eye; walk on head down, crumpling forward. I’ve become my layers of protection, forgotten my soul. A dried-up onion, nothing left that lives. The TV runs on continuous play; with slim apology to the likes of us, still roiling in the aftermath. Avoid all mention, alert to that sense of foreboding, drop silent, feign ignorance; a few of my layered strategies.

Placed in the safety of a Protestant family business, with hope of a future, a husband, maybe a family. The work simple, friends made, summer days in the town and fairs, a tepid boyfriend chasing. 

When he came up the stairs with some question, I was lying on my bed. He was always kind to me with his easy smile, hiding a darker interest. His hand in mine, stroking my brow, we lay together while, downstairs, a family dinner was made ready. Was my naivety to blame? Is my passion unbridled? Or his warm, seductive hands? Twice and I fell pregnant.

Panic, quickly disguised by plans and promises. He could do that. Arrangements quietly made: ‘a holiday’, an adoption, return to work, and then, if I wished, to go anywhere – all costs and more covered.

Bethany, not the biblical haven I expected. Anything but. Dozens of us with similar stories treated like sheep, dirty sheep; taught to distain, ourselves, our situation, our children. Girls and women in turmoil embarking on the lonely unknow road, to separate purgatories, our sins ‘mortal’ the others told me.

Peel away the layers one by one. They are not needed now, at the end. I can see with final clarity it’s just me and the child. Cradling him, bathed in golden light. The two of us bound forever. And thus, we approach the gates of Heaven.

In memory of those whose voices were never heard.

PDF version here.

In appreciation

I walked the millrace to its head

three hundred paces and more
stepping out the years
to when mud-splattered men
fed by their patient women
fashioned stone
of sluice gate and bridge
of nearby lime kiln

already waist-deep in history
the Boyne's victory settling
at the planter’s mill
they dug deep the levelled race
their labourer’s mutterings unheard
as wet boots shucked
to bawdy blether of passers-by

the land’s oats and grain
scythed on model fields
rid of stones to line the race
wait on religious men
to grind their daily bread
to believe in trade and progress
a better place than was given

children shout and run to
that first rush of water 
following the channel 
muddy at first 
to the pond and sluice
life surges in their place 
towards a golden heaven

a crowd strains to see
as water spills
onto the big iron wheel
labouring in its first turn
hesitant and slow
yet relentless now 
stone against stone 

grinding out our future
and we are moved
in this place
to read to write
to scratch out words
and listen 
for distant whisperings

River Mill Writer's Retreat, Grange Walls, Co Down.