Eileen Sheehan
(Irlanda, 1963)
Eileen Sheehan nació en Scartaglin, en la zona de Sliabh Luachra Co.Kerry en 1963, y ha vivido la mayor parte de su vida en la ciudad junto al lago cercano de Killarney. Poeta muy apreciada y muy querida, especialmente en la provincia de Munster.
Sheehan ha ganado los premios: Listowel Writers' Week Poetry Slam en 2004 y the coveted Brendan Kennelly Poetry Award in 2006.
Bibliografía:
Song of the Midnight Fox, Doghouse Books, Tralee, 2004
Down the Sunlit Hall , Doghouse Books, Tralee, 2008
Translator: Alexander Best | https://zocalopoets.com/page/4/
Donde tú estás
Tú te tumbas en cualquiera cama,
te tumbas en el fondo, y el cojín acepta
el peso de tu cabeza,
el colchón recibiendo tu cuerpo como el invitado anhelado.
Te mueves durante el reposo
y las sábanas responden a tu giro;
las cobijas se adaptan y se amoldan a tu contorno.
El aire de la habitación toma el tiempo con tu respiración,
aceptando un desplazamiento mientras
yo rodeo las paredes de la ciudad que estás ‘soñando’.
Mis papeles
– están raídos y deshilachados al borde;
esa pintura que tengo de yo mismo – está nublándose,
manchada por la lluvia: mi cara está disolviendo enfrente de mí.
La noche te agarra en el sueño y estás aplacado por sus comodidades,
como las telas absorbiendo el sudor que despides.
Mis llantos van ignorados mientras estoy de pie por la verja,
implorando un acceso.
No hay nadie pedir ayuda mientras
te mudas una capa como te extiendes allí – roque;
mi solo testigo fiable.
(2009)
From: The Watchful Heart: A New Generation of Irish Poets
Where you are
You lie down in whatever bed
you lie down in, the pillow accepting
the weight of your head, the mattress
receiving your body like a longed-for guest.
You move in your sleep and the sheets
react to your turnings, the blankets adjust,
shaping themselves to your outline.
The air
in the room keeps time with your breathing,
accepts being displaced while I circle the walls
of the city you dream.
My papers
are worn, frayed at the edges; that picture
I have of myself, clouding-over and spotted
with rain: my face is dissolving before me. The night
holds you in sleep, you are stilled by its comforts;
by the fabrics absorbing the sweat you expel.
My cries go unheeded as I stand at the gate,
pleading admittance. There is no one to turn to
as you shed a layer of your skin while you lie there,
dead to the world; my one reliable witness.
WHAT THE OLD WOMAN SAID
I will tell you this. There was a garden by the pump. Fallow land given me.
My father built flowerbeds. Offshoots of paths. Geometric patterns.
Cuttings. Bulbs from my mother. The texture of earth.
Stone. The smell of water. I could grow anything.
I will tell you this. There was a pond. Wrinkles of mud. Pups that were drowned there.
Dragged to the bank. Sacksful slit open. Way beyond saving.
Names that I gave them. Returned to the water. Each small splash.
Spirals expanding. My own face rippling.
I will tell you this. There was a heron. Constant. Returning.
Stilt-leg. Growing above water. Curtain of willows.
Everything still. A crowning of feathers.
Inflections of music. Nothing was moving.
I will tell you this. There were meadows. Light. Nectar from clover.
More flowers than I could name. Armfuls I carried.
Stems that I split. Smelling of summer.
Chains on my neck. Ankles. The bones of my wrists. Knowing nothing.
I will tell you this. There was a boy. Eyes like the sky.
Eyes like my father's. Children imagined. Rooms that were borrowed.
Rooms that were painted. Stories invented.
Histories. Futures. We knew everything.
I will tell you this. There was a man. Veins under skin.
Bones. Barely there. His stuttered breathing.
Green light on a screen. Intermittent beeping.
False light. False music. Someone was dying.
I will tell you this. I had seen his face on the shroud.
Running and bleeding. Wounds on his hands.
Pictures on glass. Coloured and leaded.
Faces on statues. A cross through his heart. Light always fading.
I will tell you this. There was a room. White. A white plate on the table.
A man at the table. Notes in his voice. A tune that I knew.
Beauty in the movements of his face. His arms. Frisson of wings.
Touch. Touch me. But he already had. I had forgotten everything.
I will tell you this. Some days are unbearable. Horizontal planes.
Moment to moment. Each long tick. I have been lonely.
Last night. A dream of a heron. The span of his wings.
Sounding through air. Listen. Listen. I am disappearing.
From: Song of the Midnight Fox
Publisher: Doghouse Books, Tralee, 2004, 978-0-954-6487-1-8
BRASSICAS
There was no sex in our village there was only
cabbage. Row upon row of it filling the haggards
on high, straight ridges. This is where babies came from
we were told, in all seriousness. My sister still remembers
being shown the exact head that she was discovered under.
We knew everything about growing the small, limp
plants that needed constant watering. Learned how to protect them
from root fly and caterpillar infestations. Recognized the different varieties,
from January King to Curly Kale, sewn in sequence for year-round cropping.
Instructed that it was never harvested until the hearts were firm and babies
were something only grown-up women found. Of sex
we knew nothing. We all hated it; the dank smell of it cooking
that permeated through the whole house for hours
after it was eaten, the sloppy look of it on the plates,
the run-off staining the spuds and bacon. But it was
good for us so we were made to finish it. Remember
how mother would add a teaspoon of soda to the water
to soften the fibers? Years later, I learnt that this destroys
the flavour, disarms the vitamins. The myth was easy
to believe in a farming community until our hormones and
neighbours' sons, well educated in animal husbandry,
illuminated the shortcomings in our education.
Oh my sisters,
we are the daughters of cabbages and should celebrate our
cruciferae lineage; tough and sinewy of a strong variety,
adaptable to any climate, winter hardy;
never ones to take
ourselves too seriously: when I think on it,
my sisters, all that green we swallowed.
From: Down the Sunlit Hall
Publisher: Doghouse Books, Tralee, 2008, 978-0-955-2003-9-7
ANNIVERSARY
The edge of a closed grave
is easier to stand by
the edge of a settled grave
is easier still
there are flowers,
a potted evergreen,
marble chippings that glint
charmingly in the sun
look death, are you pleased
at how pretty we have made you?
do you like this calmness?
and I see down
past the marble chippings,
the layer of weed suppressant,
the sod, the clay, the sharp
flints of pencil, the wood,
the satin lining
to where she is,
becoming bone,
mother, do you like this calmness?
do you like these yellow petals I hold
up here in a world that never loved you enough,
the world you would never
allow to love you enough
I slip through the V in the wall
earth, be kind to my mother
earth, hold her gently
From: The Cathach , Volume 1: Summer, 2009
LIVING IN THE SURREAL WITH ALOIS
my mother knocks on the side of her head,
still active inside her, still vital
her need to blame, her need to name,
to explain away the confusion she wakes to
my mother makes a tight, knuckled knot of her hand
knocks on the side of her head
it's in there she says, the tumour
red and hard and the size of my fist
it makes me forget, they told me it's there
deep in my brain like the yolk in an egg
they can't get it out without killing me
do you think they will kill me, it makes me forget
why can't I forget that it's there why can't I forget to forget
she knocks on the side of her head as if
someone might answer, as if someone might open
the door to her brain she knocks she knocks but nobody's home
she's even forgotten my name I am visitor I am the one to complain to
I am the one who is helpless as her she knocks she knocks
on the side of her head I imagine the lump she imagines
inside of her head I imagine it shrinking she knocks
on the side of her head and it falls out her ear
rolls like a marble look I tell her it's gone it fell out your ear
rolled under the table got ate by the cat she laughs was it grey
no I say it was black, black as the darkness black as the devil
a right bad lot but he swallowed it up then he swallowed a rat
and she laughs I remember she says it was black, black as the darkness
but he swallowed it up and she sleeps I untangle her fingers
smooth out her hand and she sleeps and I drive
through the rain through the night-time
and the hedgerow disgorges a cat that stands
in the glare of the headlights and I stop
to salute it; to grant it safe passage home
From: Down the Sunlit Hall
Publisher: Doghouse Books, Tralee, 2008, 978-0-955-2003-9-7
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