Rhubarb
My Clan Mother is the great she-devil
of the forest. She stands twenty feet
over fields of wild rhubarb, Dutch cabbage.
Her face is black, blacker than the blue
of night where stars shed tears into rivers,
lakes, onto the windscreen of my car.
If I weren’t in such a hurry
I would pull over, wait for her
to pluck me from the hard shoulder.
Together we could hunt boar
in the forest and at night stay dry
beneath the cauls of newborn children.
.
by Celia de Freine
from Faoi Chabáistí is Ríonacha
publisher: Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2001