Birthday Egrets
Nine egrets, whiter than snow
in the wetland after the deluge,
wings unfolding – graceful, slow,
then like sudden overblown sprays
of wild cherry blossom, perched
for a moment on the tallest oak.
Nine egrets, whiter than snow
on this my mother’s birthday
and she twice nine years ago
gone. Are they a present from her,
when presents should be hers?
She promised to come back –
nine egrets, whiter than snow.
So perhaps this is it: in tiny mirrors
of water from beyond, a special show
plumbed by the horse’s hooves.
Maybe she wants to remind us
of the nine-times-tables we chanted…
nine egrets whiter than snow…
and how multiples of nine add up
to the nine which scatters and glows
with a transforming light of change,
previous mistakes churned into mud
by the birds’ feet yolk-yellow.
Nine egrets, whiter than snow
O wing me, then, whiter than snow –
long black beaks nibs for poets
on clay. Wing me through wings
within my mother’s wings, nine egrets
whiter than sea mists, whiter than snow..
Ice Child
What else can you be, child of our time –
except born and unborn in the ice
of a cap melting slowly,
greens and pinks of the northern lights
flowing through you instead of blood.
Cold, ice cold you are when, with too much
to feel, you find yourself up against
plagues, mass shootings, famines, knives:
with no trekking routes, no boats
over ice floes for rescue. I see you –
one eye closed against the intolerable,
the other squinting over sledge-prints
of Shackleton, Scott, North, South, picking –
off rock-like layers and levels of ice –
a husky’s stiffened hairs to wrap about you.
Stay without flesh, child of our time,
guarded, in that foetal position, by as many
degrees below zero as you can stand.
The price of skin is vulnerability,
alienation. Freeze dreams of gardens
in your soul, and a mother’s arms curved
into a sanctuary. Ignore the drip, drip
of water which kills off seals, polar bears –
and could kill you. May the silence
in your heart keep the song inside you.
A Friday 13th
i
A Friday 13th – a day we got married
and now a day of your Inquest
your name roll-called for the last time
or maybe the first. Your full address,
date of birth bouncing off the walls
of the courtroom as if you are the lead
in a play with no rehearsals and only
one stage performance, the rest
of the cast stony-faced as they deliver
their set lines. Nothing lyrical, simply
facts, times, statistics too upsetting
to hear. Hardly anyone in the audience
and although an end, no final curtain.
ii
I remember that Friday 13th in April,
primroses in our hands, queueing up
with the other brides and grooms as if
on a conveyor belt. Trying not to laugh
we were so happy, myself longing
for a god as we exchanged our vows –
then racing back to the ancient cottage
we were moving into for the first time
for our makeshift honeymoon. Planning
little upstairs bedrooms for the children
we expected to have, motheaten toys
from our own childhoods on two beds.
Like a first love, though not quite…
iii
Driving back through the sudden fog
that obscured all outlines: trees, houses,
animals, people gone – along with you,
ourselves almost disembodied,
not daring to see on verges visions
of the first daffodils the same colour
as my bridal dress given away long ago
to another. I wanted to show you
the tiny forest of mauve crocuses
that have withstood wind, rain, frost,
stronger than we are in their fragility.
I wanted you to hear the owls mistaking
day for night, calling and calling for you.
Author’s Bionote:
*Patricia McCarthy is half Irish, half English. She edited “Agenda” poetry journal for more than twenty years. She won The Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition in 2013. Her work has been published widely in journals, magazines and newspapers and several collections of hers have been published, the latest being “Hand in Hand” based on Tristan and Iseult, “Bad Summer” (a pamphlet, Dare-Gale Press) and “Round the Mulberry Bush”, late 2026, Agenda Editions.
Nine egrets, whiter than snow
in the wetland after the deluge,
wings unfolding – graceful, slow,
then like sudden overblown sprays
of wild cherry blossom, perched
for a moment on the tallest oak.
Nine egrets, whiter than snow
on this my mother’s birthday
and she twice nine years ago
gone. Are they a present from her,
when presents should be hers?
She promised to come back –
nine egrets, whiter than snow.
So perhaps this is it: in tiny mirrors
of water from beyond, a special show
plumbed by the horse’s hooves.
Maybe she wants to remind us
of the nine-times-tables we chanted…
nine egrets whiter than snow…
and how multiples of nine add up
to the nine which scatters and glows
with a transforming light of change,
previous mistakes churned into mud
by the birds’ feet yolk-yellow.
Nine egrets, whiter than snow
O wing me, then, whiter than snow –
long black beaks nibs for poets
on clay. Wing me through wings
within my mother’s wings, nine egrets
whiter than sea mists, whiter than snow..
Ice Child
What else can you be, child of our time –
except born and unborn in the ice
of a cap melting slowly,
greens and pinks of the northern lights
flowing through you instead of blood.
Cold, ice cold you are when, with too much
to feel, you find yourself up against
plagues, mass shootings, famines, knives:
with no trekking routes, no boats
over ice floes for rescue. I see you –
one eye closed against the intolerable,
the other squinting over sledge-prints
of Shackleton, Scott, North, South, picking –
off rock-like layers and levels of ice –
a husky’s stiffened hairs to wrap about you.
Stay without flesh, child of our time,
guarded, in that foetal position, by as many
degrees below zero as you can stand.
The price of skin is vulnerability,
alienation. Freeze dreams of gardens
in your soul, and a mother’s arms curved
into a sanctuary. Ignore the drip, drip
of water which kills off seals, polar bears –
and could kill you. May the silence
in your heart keep the song inside you.
A Friday 13th
i
A Friday 13th – a day we got married
and now a day of your Inquest
your name roll-called for the last time
or maybe the first. Your full address,
date of birth bouncing off the walls
of the courtroom as if you are the lead
in a play with no rehearsals and only
one stage performance, the rest
of the cast stony-faced as they deliver
their set lines. Nothing lyrical, simply
facts, times, statistics too upsetting
to hear. Hardly anyone in the audience
and although an end, no final curtain.
ii
I remember that Friday 13th in April,
primroses in our hands, queueing up
with the other brides and grooms as if
on a conveyor belt. Trying not to laugh
we were so happy, myself longing
for a god as we exchanged our vows –
then racing back to the ancient cottage
we were moving into for the first time
for our makeshift honeymoon. Planning
little upstairs bedrooms for the children
we expected to have, motheaten toys
from our own childhoods on two beds.
Like a first love, though not quite…
iii
Driving back through the sudden fog
that obscured all outlines: trees, houses,
animals, people gone – along with you,
ourselves almost disembodied,
not daring to see on verges visions
of the first daffodils the same colour
as my bridal dress given away long ago
to another. I wanted to show you
the tiny forest of mauve crocuses
that have withstood wind, rain, frost,
stronger than we are in their fragility.
I wanted you to hear the owls mistaking
day for night, calling and calling for you.
Author’s Bionote:
*Patricia McCarthy is half Irish, half English. She edited “Agenda” poetry journal for more than twenty years. She won The Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition in 2013. Her work has been published widely in journals, magazines and newspapers and several collections of hers have been published, the latest being “Hand in Hand” based on Tristan and Iseult, “Bad Summer” (a pamphlet, Dare-Gale Press) and “Round the Mulberry Bush”, late 2026, Agenda Editions.