Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2025
Morning Pause, poems by Amy Abdullah Barry.
Morning Pause
Parked —
leaning back, gently —
engine ticking its warmth
into silence.
The children,
dropped at school.
A breath —
Newstalk murmurs:
Dublin’s Spire
won’t bear Mandela’s name…
The French President
chooses an actress
over his first lady.
Paolo Nutini croons Candy —
Suddenly
unfolding before me
the hills of Nagarkot,
the sky leaks saffron into the valley
and terraced paddy fields.
Jaandh in hand,
sipped slow
through a bamboo straw.
Mount Everest,
a hush in the gylden haze.
Yet —
here I am,
in this Nissan,
cupping a sleek mug
from the holder,
rubber grip warm
to my fingers,
the Kenyan roast
swirling
its rich, fruity fog
into my head.
A moment — still,
whole.
Mine — on a cracked roadside
in Athlone.
Amoi
Was it you I heard—
your voice, light as sun through glass—
or only the wind
brushing the fields,
wet with yesterday’s rain?
I glance at the three vases
you gave me—still proud
atop the bookshelf,
their purple morning glories
unchanged by time
I remember:
the motorbike hum,
your eldest clutched to your chest,
your laughter —
quick and bright —
tangled in the wind.
The meals you made,
spiced and wild —
flavours we chased to the bone.
Your wife and I,
licking our fingers,
laughing like girls
with no weight on our backs.
But joy cracked on March 3rd, 1997 —
Langkawi skies.
A Cessna rising.
A camera.
A friend.
A flight.
And then —
only swamp,
only silence.
The phone rang.
We forgot how to breathe.
Words failed.
Only the railing remembered —
twisted and cut
to carry you
back inside.
They laid you in the sitting room.
Mourners came like mist —
soft, unbelieving.
Rain fell.
And the earth took you gently,
beside the jackfruit tree
that leans a little now.
She stood there —
your wife —
two sons pressed to her heart.
One barely walking,
one still wrapped in milk-sleep.
She didn’t wail.
Only whispered prayers,
wondering how she would raise them alone.
Without your steady hands,
your calm voice,
your way of fixing broken things.
But still,
she rose.
She raised them.
And even now —
when the dusk hums low
and the wind forgets itself —
sometimes,
I hear it:
“Amoi…”
I turn,
and for a breath —
believe.
In memory of my brother-in-law
One of the Filem Negara cameramen who perished in the Cessna crash,
Langkawi, 3 March 1997, filming The Tour De France.
Amoi meaning sister in Hokkien.
© Amy Abdullah Barry
Amy Abdullah Barry, a poet & short story writer. Her work has been widely published, and translated into several languages. Selected for the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series 2022, Amy has received literature bursaries from the Arts Council and Words Ireland. Amy regularly organizes poetry & music events in Athlone, Roscommon and Dublin, and facilitates workshops in schools, hospitals, libraries, bookshops, and at the Irish Writers Centre. A travel lover, she has performed her poetry both in Ireland and internationally, including opening for headliner, Lemn Sissay at the Morecambe Poetry Festival in UK. Her debut poetry collection, Flirting with Tigers (Dedalus Press, 2023), has received acclaim in The Irish Independent, The High Window, Irish Examiner, Poetry Ireland Review, Senior Times, The Galway Review and Roscommon Herald.