i.m. J. O’Flaherty

She breathes the air of her forebears
and walks the muddied path to the ruins

of the Cleared Coast, the hills lit by ling
heather. She hears of crofters once turfed out,

of their evictors wasting basins of milk,
yes, milk to douse the fire in the hearths

of homes in Boreraig. And of the wailing
and wandering by the waters of Loch Eishort.

But now in the southern spring sky of her
homeland, walls of flame lap at the edge

of old rainforest—the heritage house ablaze
and tumbling—and all the burning sears her

here as streams channel down by granite, and
gleam by bog myrtle, blaeberry and Scots pine.

Kathryn Fry

 

Listen to Kathryn reading ‘Going Home’ (0:56)

 

Since moving to Belmont New South Wales, Kathryn Fry has had poems published in various anthologies and journals, including Antipodes (2016, 2019), Westerly (2019) and Not Very Quiet (2017, 2018, 2019). Her first collection is Green Point Bearings (Ginninderra Press 2018).

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