Meg Tyler
To the Lord Mayor of Belfast

I ran through your town,
down the diagonal paths
between patches of green
in your Botanic Gardens,

the hyacinths at first
a blurred purple
before their scent caught.

I ran by your River Lagan,
down a cement path
on the Stranmillis Enbankment,

a rusting railing through which
some wind blew, then trash.
The water hastening inland.
Blackbirds unseen.

I ran by your cars with the steering
wheel on the right,
your Dunnes store,
your Chinese Welcome Center.
Heard the bright din
of the school playground,

saw between hedges
gray wool stockings and jumpers
as children strove at recess in a ring.

Up through the gardens again,
as if drawn by the hedgerows,
I ran past a man in green trousers
pulling at the earth.

Behind the roses was the protruding
back of the Ulster Museum,
oozing as if
from a dough press.

As I ran, I was not thinking
of trouble,
or art,
not thinking of the elegant
Georgian frontispiece
I hadn't seen
(there was much I hadn't seen),
the Doric columns at attention.

I ran past the Lyric Theatre, where later
I would sit with the great poet’s brother
who knit his fingers together
and threw his head back to laugh:

ghosts come striding into their spring stations.

I ran through the drift
of his white hair
to the Malone Road
and Osborne Gardens
where Michael and Edna abide
in a house lit with triptychs
of their daughter's
painted gardens.

Then back toward the Lagan,
I ran down my ardor.
I ran down what I couldn't
understand as
an intention to love.

I ran through Belfast,
around street corners now
bustling with workers.

I ran past the bus station,
the Europa Hotel,
where as a girl,
she had been blown
off her feet.

I ran past the Ulster Hall,
the fish-n-chips man
with his splash of red hair
and level gaze,
past the Boots,
past the queues of taxis.

I ran past broken windows,
past St. George’s Market
where they laid
the bodies
and then
the cabbages out.

Then I ran to the other side
of the Lough,
up toward Holywood
and open spaces.
On my left the beach
with blue shells.
Cafés with the Telegraph
splayed open on their tables.
I left them behind.

I ran past the shadow of
what could be,
glancing across the deep green
of the field,
the gorse on fire above it.

I ran along the banks
of hawthorn,
past spades and turf fires,
the smoke as thick
and gray as water.

Past the woman
sweeping the hearth
with the goose wing,
cleaning the chimney
with the gander.
I ran past her drop scones,
the wheaten bread.

I ran past all I used to love
but can no longer entirely remember.

        you will remember
        for we in our youth
                did these things

        yes many and beautiful things

_ _

Notes: The Lord Mayor, Mairtin O'Muilleior, named Sinead Morrisey Belfast's first poet laureate. The first italicized line above is from Seamus Heaney’s Glanmore Sonnets, in Field Work (1976). The second italicized section is quoted from Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho, If Not, Winter (2003).

Meg Tyler's book of poems, Poor Earth, was published by Finishing Line Press last year.

>> Back to Issue 18, 2015