Gedicht
Gregory O\'Donoghue
Louis le Brocquy’s ‘Fantail Pigeons’
Louis le Brocquy’s ‘Fantail Pigeons’
Louis le Brocquy’s ‘Fantail Pigeons’
The first pigeons I remember rustledinside baskets at a seaside station
where someone told us the way-out
scenario of their release and homing.
Before I learned the ring-, the turtle-dove
are pigeons, I guessed by the bill,
the high eye in the mild skull,
the Holy Ghost was an albino pigeon.
Years on, as freak April snow
curled into another station,
a porter filled me in on pigeons:
when they circle above the east platform
a widow will board the next train;
if over the northside shed,
misery will alight from the dawn express;
so on – but only when the snow has fallen.
*
It all came back as I focused on the spray
of thrashing feathers, colour-flutters,
the rush of tumbling heads in ‘Fantail Pigeons’.
Where only one foot emerges (sfumato)
and the shapings of one whole torso – a dash
of dark and carmine at its breast.
And the heads – there are two or three, five:
a pigeon lit upon hanging on thermals,
or lofting, or wheeling; its radiance held.
© 1996, The Estate of Gregory O\'Donoghue
From: Making Tracks
Publisher: The Dedalus Press, Dublin
From: Making Tracks
Publisher: The Dedalus Press, Dublin
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Louis le Brocquy’s ‘Fantail Pigeons’
The first pigeons I remember rustledinside baskets at a seaside station
where someone told us the way-out
scenario of their release and homing.
Before I learned the ring-, the turtle-dove
are pigeons, I guessed by the bill,
the high eye in the mild skull,
the Holy Ghost was an albino pigeon.
Years on, as freak April snow
curled into another station,
a porter filled me in on pigeons:
when they circle above the east platform
a widow will board the next train;
if over the northside shed,
misery will alight from the dawn express;
so on – but only when the snow has fallen.
*
It all came back as I focused on the spray
of thrashing feathers, colour-flutters,
the rush of tumbling heads in ‘Fantail Pigeons’.
Where only one foot emerges (sfumato)
and the shapings of one whole torso – a dash
of dark and carmine at its breast.
And the heads – there are two or three, five:
a pigeon lit upon hanging on thermals,
or lofting, or wheeling; its radiance held.
From: Making Tracks
Louis le Brocquy’s ‘Fantail Pigeons’
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