New Poem draft

Her is a first draft from a recently composed poem I wrote towards my 2014 poetry collection. I hope to publish a book of Selected Poems in 2012.

The Empty Black Chair

The empty black wooden chair
To me
Is not just an
Empty black wooden chair

There’s a sheepdog lay at the foot of it
& a turf fire to one side with turf sods drying
& a pair of black tongs leaning against the hearth

Its spindles are accordion players that have listened to the tides and winds and are fluent in their music

Its legs are old storytellers that have heard the banshee wailing at the gable & seen the man in the greatcoat walking back & forth over the bridge in the dead of night

Its seat is a young sean nos singer lulling the world with her voice
That resonates with the fields & mountains & streams

Its arms are the poet who has stayed up to watch the stars & moon
& listened to the language of eagles and ants and ancestors

Its shine is a dancer dancing the hare & the clouds on Slievemore
Mountain & travelling with the whales as they navigate the oceans

Its presence is a painter capturing light & texture, clouds & tides, brushing in Seasons & wild flowers in oils & charcoal & pastels, Naples yellow, Raw sienna, Ultramarine, Cadmium red.

Its ’suchness’ is old cottages and community dances & soda bread and salmon and collecting eggs and milking cows and yoking the donkey
& gathering turf and poitin & craic and all that was ever worth it.

The empty black wooden chair
To me
Is not just an
Empty black wooden chair.

Copyright Mark F Chaddock 2011
2/11/11