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Ciarán O' Rourke is a fifth year student in Gonzaga College SJ (Ranelagh, Dublin). He is
16-years-old, and lives in Stillorgan, Co. Dublin. He has won 1st place in his age
category in The Listowel Writer's Festival (Kerry, Ireland) 2006 and 2007, and was
published in the subsequent journals. He has also had two short prose pieces published in
The Irish Times since March 2006.
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Stranger
I shape your eyes with
The nib of my pen, your
Face dipping in and out of
My mind like a thought you
Planted casually there one day.
I do not know your name, just
That you were sailing in a crowd
Of strangers and I felt something
Flower in me as you passed –
A spatter of robin feet somewhere
In my chest.
This paper is the earth
In which I lay your seed, my berry-black
Ink delicate as it gathers into words,
Which in some way are supposed to
Stir the leaves of that moment in my
Memory.
Perhaps by filling this blank
Space I can hold even a sand-grain of the
Honesty in your smile, and sail that sea
Of faces again, finding yours, budding
Into life.
I will never know you, no matter how
High my boughs nor deep my roots will
Reach, so I bury you here, in this,
The only warmth that I can give.
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Old Man
If he could remember
What it was he searched
For all his life, he would
Happily lie down to rest
But whenever he meets
His window-pale reflection,
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Sustenance
You scoop up our words as
No other great-granny would,
More interested in us and our news
Than the food you have been served,
Listening intently to everything we
Have to say.
I love your voice, the way you tap
A rhyme on the tablecloth when
You talk, Morse-coding each phrase
For the plate and cutlery audience
Surrounding us.
You unroll for us your past, filling
Our glasses with the people and
Placenames, all strange and fresh
To me, of your youth – spreading
The family history out across the
Tabletop.
Your unseeing eyes still brim
With that life, that vim you have
Carried throughout the years, and
As you speak they wander through
Your memories, gazing somewhere
Into your cooking pot of time.
You relay to us the whereabouts
And doings of distant cousins,
Forking out without hesitation
An uncountable amount of names
And ages, all stored and corked
Secure in your head.
We scoop and scrape the last remains
Of the meal from our plates, rising then
To stroll down the lane with you, your
Voice sounding in time with the beat
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