Eavan Boland - Mar 18, Iyengar II & I

For the day after, I understand mixed feelings about celebrating St. Patrick’s Day . Instead I’m offering a devotional piece about one person’s relationship with Ireland.

MOTHER IRELAND

At first

I was land.

I lay on my back to be fields

and when I turned

on my side

I was a hill

under freezing stars.

I did not see.

I was seen.

Night and day

words fell on me.

Seeds. Raindrops.

Chips of frost.

From one of them

I learned my name.

I rose up. I remembered it.

Now I could tell my story.

It was different

from the story told about me.

And now also

it was spring.

I could see the wound I had left

in the land by leaving it.

I travelled west.

Once there

I looked with so much love

at every field

as it unfolded

its rusted wheel and its pram chassis

and at the gorse-

bright distances

I had been that they misunderstood me.

Come back to us

they said

Trust me I whispered.