‘Cill Aodáin’ is one of the most loved poems of Galway’s blind poet, Anthony Raftery (Antoine Ó Raifteiri 1784-1835) – better known by its first line, the joyous “Anois teacht an Earraigh” (Now comes the Spring). Our poet today, Dónall Dempsey, recalls “I remember passing a little school one day and this wafted out in a myriad of little off-key voices and it was as if tiny flowers of sound flourished there in mid-air. It was a thing of fragile beauty and I plucked it from the Spring breeze and tucked it behind my mind. Forty years later it resurfaced but by now the world had gone on and it was a different Spring that wanted me to put it into words. As we Irish have it: there are two tellings to every story, and twelve versions of every song! This is my version with its pale and almost see-through hope with only the Irish title hanging on in there.” Dónall’s title references the poem of the same name by Raftery. And it is Day 495 of the daily new poems.
Anois teacht an Earraigh
(Now comes the Spring)
Spring throws
a switch
and turns the flowers on
even the old stars come
to see
the newest season
and how
the world is getting on.
The blue ball
keeps on spinning
and we haven’t fallen
off yet.
Birds keeping on singing
trying to tell us how
it is
but
…do we listen?
Dónall Dempsey