Live Encounters Poetry & Writing June 2025
The Nurse Abroad In Wartime, poems by Thomas Seán Purdy.
The Nurse Abroad In Wartime
There is no oath
To an ancient Greek,
Physician and philosopher
That would prepare me for this.
No teacher whose encouragement
And skills bestowed
Would help suture this rift
Between neighbours, countries
And the roof on this hospital now
Torn asunder by a device
dropped from the heavens
Meant only to demean Humanity and Love.
So I clutch the Sacred Heart Badge
You gave me in Hope and Faith
As I look at my patients
Tossed about these crumbling halls
In their cots and stretchers
Pleas and pain soaking through
Their eyes and garments,
As shrapnel sneers through their bodies.
I cling to the gift of your memory,
I pray you to mine
And if the procession should arrive soon
Of lilacs, daffodils, an elm box and polished brass —
Keep the remembrance lighthearted,
The clay pipes lit,
Any keener or choir will do
So long as above my resting place
You stand clutching the Sacred Heart gift
That arose from this rubble
To find its way back to you
Like Healing on a morning in Spring.
The Dustbin in the Square
Palace guard of the market square
– Yes and servant –
Here for the noble child who catapults
The packet of cheese and onion remnants
Into my waiting turret
And for those young ones
Who stoop to retrieve
Their miss from the cobblestone moat
I will forevermore seek
To tidy this realm for you.
Tourist, cousin seeker
Connecting as best you can
Placenames and townlands
The dropped pins of
emigrants and urgencies
mapped on hotel stationery
now soggy and disposable
– Good thing you took a smartphone photo
Before the clouds
Peeked and leaked
Over your shoulder –
Not every natural element
is into genealogy.
And I am here too as
vault and confidant
for you, young woman
Fresh and flush and hurrying
Tossing the bourbon creams wrapper
Along with the breadcrumbs of
a postal receipt tracking number
Deferring interest in
The story arc’s endpoint –
You are no one’s paramour, anymore.
And to you the modern bard
Damp and unsure from
A night of overthinking at the pub
I am the primary chamber
That will keep your cryptic beer mat
between us, to be burned
Then as carbon and ash to rise again,
Swirl and sparkle as fairy dust,
Settle for you to sprinkle
on a future muse.
© Thomas Seán Purdy
Thomas Seán Purdy is a poet, author and storyteller with citizenship and sensibilities in both Ireland and the USA. His narrative non-fiction piece “The Last St. Patrick’s Day” first appeared in The Mayo News on March 17, 2021. The Irish Community Archive Network, a project of the National Museum of Ireland, published an expanded version soon thereafter. He later contributed several poems, a second non-fiction piece titled “St. Patrick’s Day Reborn,” and a video tribute to a County Mayo cillín (sacred burial ground) titled “Honour The Children: A Rededication,” to its website OurIrishHeritage.org. In 2023 and 2024 he was a featured speaker at the Síamsa Sráide Street & Arts Festival in Swinford, County Mayo. In October of 2024 he presented “Meet Me At The Veil,” a discussion of the folklore of Halloween and the Irish holiday of Oíche Shamhna or Samhain, to the Shamrock Club of Wisconsin. He also wrote stories for The Connaught Telegraph and IrishCentral.com. He has served as a guest co-host for the internet radio show Good Morning Ireland, on Global Irish Radio. You can visit him at www.iamliminal.com.