Two Poems by Rory McArdle
Listening for Source
His face turns when
field recorder clicks,
chirps, graces, suddenly single
minded hell bent seriousness,
never a bite of doubt
Davy’s not listening.
Seeks sound of source,
spread over mountain side,
goose chase, though audiophile’s
determined glint beguiles.
No ordinary puddle suffices,
march across moistness,
slope, entirely leaking sponge but
Davy requires single bubbles to record.
Listens his way along a brook
till it brakes into hatches
of watery fingers opening
onto upturned palm of moor.
Microphone records lively gurgles,
gush, swish, swoosh,
brown water falls
through frocken, fern.
Here, there, stops,
puffs for breath,
holds recordings to his ear,
‘Isn’t it magic?’,
a mention to open air.
Sad that cloud holds fast on Lug,
Davy deserves brook dancing to vale,
forests, walled fields of interlocked spurs,
Ow widening through Aughrim, distant
resonations as sea tastes estuary at Arklow.
Ow takes your breath away,
this day cloud, midge, drizzling mist
but Davy doesn’t mind,
sound not views tickle him.
‘Shhh!’ snaps, clicks microphone,
‘Hear it – so near.’
Eventually chooses
a puddle high enough,
leans his instrument, records
ebb-brimmed bubble of source.
Ow sounds concern him,
field recorder mere metaphor.
In mist cloud hills, solitary thoughts;
source, course, estuary,
all watery reverberations,
of lives, voices between.
Saw Devil Thorn
His devil wonders truth
to tales of fairies and thorns.
Stood up amongst
sharpest of them,
gnarled, twisted, knobbled,
leafless in winter wind,
thought of threats, fear
instilled in full grown men.
‘My son died of cancer after I cut thorn.’
‘My wife went barren when I cleared.’
Terrible stories told, blamed
outright on haws of superstition.
Sometimes devil makes him
shake a nearby brute till
blossom dapples Ow below
with soft white kisses.
‘Cut the fecker down’,
‘Put tales to the test.’
Tauntful devil jibes, course chary
as the rest, gladly better of devil now.
Though lie in half sleep, wonder whether
power’s in superstition or thorn itself,
best that saw’s well hid
when devil doubts creep.