An Chailleach Bheara

The Chailleach is featured in several Irish poems, including Padraig Pearse's "Mise Eire"
 

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Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden (1913 - 1980)

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on the the blueback cold
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fire blazes. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd cal
and slowly I would rise and dress
fearing the chronic angers of that house

Speaking indifferently to him
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

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Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
 Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

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BALLYDONEGAN BAY



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