Medbh
McGuckian
Orant Figure
I am gently compressed
On my contracted eyebrows:
My eye and its satellite
Become channels of naked silver,
Examine everything with the behavior
Of well-fitting marble.
Everything the anxieties
And exertions of the sea bring forth.
Through five-fold openings
Pierced in my back,
My human inside suspends
Its human burden.
It does not cease here
But mounts up on both of us,
Two breezes blow into us
From two directions, the rainless North
And the Autumn star.
I had nearly forgotten the Nile
And thought the signs
Borne by the landscape
Were the highest illumination
And cheap as grace.
But now the river itself is suggested
By means of distinctive currents
And birds that wash unshaken
In that river’s streams. The lip
Of the cup bends over
And assumes the shape of leaves
That retreat inward in a half-circle
As if giving way to each other in a dance.
I am cold as a church in mid-air,
The golden capitals on the upright
Collar of its walls, the bird
Perched in the hollow of a quince—
Yellow, short-lived anemone,
Gathering the flower’s sperm.
Medbh McGuckian was born in Belfast where she
lives with her family. She is the author of numerous
books, including Shelamier,
published by The Gallery Press. Among the prizes
she has won are England’s National Poetry
Competition, The Cheltenham Award, The Rooney
Prize, and the Bass Ireland Award for Literature.
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