Roisín Browne – Wild Food at Cromane

Profile Roisin Browne LE P&W Dec V One 2018

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Wild Food at Cromane, poems by  Roisín Browne

Roisín Browne lives in Rush, Co Dublin and has been published in several publications including A New Ulster, The Galway Review, Flare, Mgversion2The Stony Thursday BookThe Gladstone Readings and Echoes from the Castle Anthology. She was shortlisted for her poetry in the Over the Edge New Irish Writer of the Year in 2017, and was also awarded third prize in the Jonathan Swift Awards in the same year. She recently was commended in the Gregory O’Donoghue awards in 2018 and is a member of Poets Abroad, an online collaborative poetry gathering which is truly international in composition. Their recent chapbook, something we were supposed to do, shortlisted in the Locked Horns inaugural chapbook competition.


Wild Food at Cromane

He takes the path on the side of the mountain
blue and black and lilac against the gannet sky
na sléibhte they used to call them here
below he views The Point,
rubble of rocks and stones and bones stretch out
shipped and shaped by sea
clusters of men, tractors, vans, container sheds
form an archipelago of sorts
further out the flat bottom boats direct from France,
still and balancing on grey,
red and green dredgers, their names white and bold,
sit, contemplating beyond
further the foam, the scum, the seaweed, the inter-tide,
the rising mounds, the neat rows of steel structures
embedded in sand, like standing crabs,
beds for bags, hooked, rubbered, trestled in place
catching sea in their tiny skylight gaps
water caressing, growing seed, shells, meat,
ocean turning
bringing wild food
out of it.


Night Divers     

Night divers wait for the sun
to dip beneath day sheets
and snuggle down into the warm recesses
of a gloaming mattress

when all has ceased to flit and trundle
they raise their limbs in salutation
to the cloak of sky and breathe in
the after-breath of day,
which lingers like hot mint
on the evening dust

they sip in the still
lean in unison with slanting air
slip into tilt, splice moonlight
and rustle sleeping waters.


On seeing my Uncle

for Paddy

tangerine
lime
verdant
lavender lines lengthen
Port Aven
Blue boats
Breton girls
glimmer back on Merrion Street
as you swirl by the view
a bright blur lingers
in the corner of my left eye
long enough to recognise
your frame.


© Roisín Browne