Following my journey to India in 2018 and to the US in 2019, I wrote the poem 'Ganga to La Croix' in response to a request from Leslie Thomas to contribute a poem for 'Write to the River' published Nov 2019.
Bernadette reads Father to Daughter for the Irish Poetry Reading Archive, University College Dublin. This poem is based on her experience of leaving Ireland to live and work in Baghdad in the early 1980s. This recording of an earlier version of Father to Daughter was first published by editor, Christine Murray, on Poethead in 2017. The revised version appears below.
Father to Daughter
For Rafiq Kathwari
Do you realise there is a war
going on?I didn’t.
Used to being stopped
at security checkpoints
Strabane – Aughnacloy.
Sounds of war do not
stifle a 22-year old.
Lights out, blinds down
pretend we are invisible
as our plane prepares to land.
At work Ahmed pours sweet tea -
small glass too hot to hold.
An Arab friend gently plucks
stray hairs from my face
working thread with fingers.
High fashion – hand made
from Burda patterns – covered
for Mosque with Abaya.
Five women dressed in black
on our way to Gaylani Mosque.
A letter goes astray to Tehran
but finds me safe on Haifa Street
Baghdad.
(c) Bernadette Gallagher
Bernadette introduces and reads an earlier version of Christ is Risen for the Irish Poetry Reading Archive at University College Dublin.
Christ is Risen
With hope we came to the cave;
to find an impostor preaching
words of fear and hate.
“What would you do if Muslims took over this country?”
As Christ rose from the dead
We walked out of the church.
(c) Bernadette Gallagher
Bernadette introduces and reads an earlier version of Rosa for the Irish Poetry Reading Archive at University College Dublin. Rosa was first published in Boyne Berries in 2016 Editor: Orla Fay and
2nd publication by Poethead in 2017 Editor: Christine Murray.
Rosa
Do not prune the roses said Vita Sackville-West strung together let them grow to four feet at best.
Dig the hole deep and fill with rotted waste filtered by worms to our taste.
The rose blossomed in Istanbul, bringing squares of pale pink tossed in ice to tempt my love
until death cuts off a branch dropping a single white flower below.
