At the easel, she steps outside the pain,
follows sunshine over water, chases
the luminosity of shadow. Shorelines,
flowers, she adds colour to the world.
Knowing how she would like to leave
the garden, she directs the heavy spadework
as her sons break ground. But in the end,
it takes a five horsepower rotovator
to plough through the hard clay,
ready earth for the seedballs she bought.
In a flurry of energy, she repaints everything,
kitchen chairs, the garden bench,
the window frames in battleship grey.
When the nurses tell her to stick to the canvas,
she watches through the glass, waits
for what she broadcast to bare soil.
Ragged-robin, loosestrife, meadowsweet,
the pink stars, purple whorls, yellow bursts,
her wildflower fresco she set to grow –
the time bombs of hope.
Sinéad Griffin has been published in Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Times, The Marrow Poetry, The Honest Ulsterman, Abridged and elsewhere. Her work featured in the Poetry Jukebox at IMMA. One of the editors at The Four Faced Liar, she’s currently the recipient of a Dublin City Arts Bursary.
More work by Sinéad Griffin
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