Books

Poem of the week: Jour Fixe

A new poem by Eva Bourke

Eva Bourke is a member of Aosdána. Photograph: Miriam de Burca

Eva Bourke
Sat Apr 2 2022 - 06:00

So lasst mich scheinen, bis ich werde,
zieht mir das weiße Kleid nicht aus!
Ich eile von der schönen Erde
Hinab in jenes feste Haus
– JW von Goethe

Today I went to the museum of instruments –
remember the regular jour fixe afternoon
recitals? – how one time the pianist, a young Korean,

played the Diabelli variations with such pizzazz
and fire we were blown away by her?
A trans-Siberian spring wind was in force

this afternoon with its peculiar northern iciness
that slips its knife into your soul and grips the trees,
and drives the salt tears from your eyes.

READ MORE

I sat among the elderly widows who call by
the underground café to sip their solitary coffees
and peck at whipped-cream buns and apple pie,

perched on their chairs like well-groomed crows
before they flutter upstairs to the hall, pushing their way
with resolution through the dilatory crowds.

We'd often seen them and smiled at the flap and flurry
with which they settled on their front-row seats.
I've joined them now; it's the familiar story:

I'd been complaisant, smug, arriving late with you,
we'd lock our bikes outside and run into the hall,
you'd hold my hand while listening, my friend, my paramour,

my love. Troubled by the lines an alto voice
sang at the concert, I still wonder if that winter night
you too had wished to hurry from the beautiful earth,

down to that firm and sombre house
to rest a while and then to waken with unclouded sight?

You didn't say – it's been so cold and silent since you died,
and no replies from you, no answers, only silence.

  • Eva Bourke has published seven collections of poetry, most recently Seeing Yellow (Dedalus 2018). In 2020 she was shortlistred for Irish Times Poetry Now Prize and awarded the Michael Hartnett Prize for Poetry.
LATEST STORIES