2018 Poetry Contest Winners
The Donn Goodwin Prize of $100
Awarded to Bart Cournane
My Singing Bird
In the field west of his mountain lair stood a quiet sally hold
And there he'd cut strong cipins smoth and build a sturdy fold
He needed music in his life to stir his lonesome soul
He would own the sweetest singing bird
And his heart might, again, be whole
He hung the cage outside the door
That the lark might think 'twas free
And from that perch the bird looked out
O'er river, peaks and sea
He was pleased with his handiwork
And the summer days stretched on
His life seemed somehow fuller now
His heart somehow less wan
Lying against a ditch one day resting bog-weary limb
He waited for his singing bird to pour forth a trilling hymn
But the sally cage was silent now
No song nor flitting wing
He had stripped her of her liberty
And had expected her to sing
Just then her little mate cried out from a withered elder tree
"Come out, come out; we'll fly away and you'll sing again with me"
Life's twists and turns teach many things
On this we all agree
Your beauty love, my singing bird,
Is now you ever will be free
The Joseph Gahagan Prize of $100
Awarded to Kathleen Hayes Phillips
At the Pyle Art Show
It was the grass that slowed me down...grass
so green it seemed unreal, the verdant field squared off
into a checkerboard dotted with toy sheep
and whitewashed cottages, the artist's remembering
of a place and time held in an ornate frame,
a difficult tast at best, for memories are known to be
will-o-the-whisps, hiding behind the flower, the three,
the smile...hard to catch, and when captured,
impossible to own...slipping away
only to reappear when you least expect them,
She was at the Healy Pass, the passage through
the rugged Caha Mountains. She stood at the top
where you are able to see in the distance the waters
of the Kenmare River. And Bantry Bay.
What you cannot see is what she did not paint:
the road you must travel to reach this spot, the way up
turning in twisting spirals like a snake intent
on biting its tail...which is why I can picture
my husband's tight face, his hands clutching the wheel,
both of us breathless, afraid to look too far ahead,
fearing what the next turn might bring, ignoring
the scenery, the vistas were told not to miss.
I am old now. And he is gone. Standing in the stillness,
I let myself return to the Healy Pass, seeing
as if for the first time, what was once right in front of me.
It seems the mist is blowing away; yellow gorse
and purple heather aside the road, hint at more gentle
return to the valley, the turns and breathing, easier.
And I can see us together, finally enjoying the view.