SONNET for NUALA
(Nuala ... Fionnuala, … Anna Lufio)
The small fruit cake cools on the hob.
It smells of being done and funeral rites
to come. I sit hollow-eared, and freighted,
listening for the echo of your voice,
that chuckle of your unruly take on life.
You unpick the thread of words, dense
beyond belief, recirculating Tara
tales spun before and after time, like river run.
I see the grey-green glint in your eye, now gone,
now here, inside me, forever flashing
cosmic prayers to commodious pantheons.
O maieutic diviner of words and dreams,
the book will be read, the cake slowly eaten,
suffused with grace-notes of your swan-song.
Maureen Diffley