POSTWOMAN

POSTWOMAN

Postwoman, ply your metier

from door to door and street to street

in balmy sun or when it’s wetter

in rain and fog and slushy sleet.

And leave your bicycle to stand

outside a local pub or grocer’s

except where things are out of hand

and thieves ignored by law-enforcers,

then you must wheel it as you pop 

from letterbox to letterbox

resting it everywhere you stop, 

which slows you down like when you knock

at homes that lack postal access,

or when you deliver bulky parcels.

Once, as you chatted at a house,

I saw your cycle seized by rascals

complete with mailbag. Luckily

the theft turned out to be a prank

by youngsters on a cider-spree.

Postwoman far from being a crank,

you tongue-lashed the culprits, then set to

your task again, a pleasant hike

because the man you were talking to

kindly offered to mind the bike.

Whether bliss, indifference or woe

the tidings in your missives meet,

postwoman, ply your valued chore

from house to house, from street to street.

In a uniform labelled Post

that’s slate-blue and whose badge is green,

in summer plod through heat and dust,

through ice and snow in winter’s spleen.

© Ciaran O'Driscoll 2014

FLOOD-POEM

THE DELUGE

What happened to sympathy and compassion?

We don’t even ask these days, it wouldn’t be

too bad if we did. One after another

calamities, and then disasters, come

numbing us, while charity bosses line

their nests. This afternoon I watched a bird

for half an hour – or was it this morning?

I forget what struck me about the bird,

its compact size, feathered fragility

or aerial prowess? All three, perhaps.

Yesterday the Shannon burst its banks,

and a man from the city council appeared

on the news, staring into the face of doom. 

The highest tide on record, he said. Seven

inches higher than the previous one. 

Noah’s Ark, I thought, that’s what struck me about 

the bird, sent out to look for landfall from 

the Island Field, simultaneously 

a bird and symbol of deliverance.

Today, all of a sudden, climate change

is a fact, no longer open to debate:

politicians have begun to use the phrase.

Seven inches up from the previous high,

said the man from the city council on TV,

gaping at the future. Lucky so far,

I live on high ground, on the other side.

The Island Field: St Mary’s Park, a housing estate in Limerick which was very badly flooded during recent storms.

© Ciaran O’Driscoll 2014