The Would-be Winter

The storm colours and the outer purple
of your stronger eyes laid my essence down
as bone. Peace waves and fresh war winds
indivisible fought about clouds.

The war-drunk war-weather
was the messenger that excites
the almond ovary, till the plant beckons
with young flowery twigs

like black petticoats vibrating
pure oxygen – pure blood – a bouquet
of dumb pathways letting a word
flow written into the hearing cup.

© Medbh McGuckian, The Would-be Winter, 1998, complete text, Shelmalier, 1998, The Gallery Press.

Medbh McGuckian’s references in 1998 to ‘peace waves and fresh war winds’ could refer to the hopes raised by political negotiations and the simultaneous rise of dissident violence. This was the year of the Good Friday Agreement and the Omagh bomb, the worst single atrocity of the Troubles.