‘Safe Houses’ - a poem by Bernard O’Donoghue

NOW retired after teaching poetry in Oxford University’s Wadham College, Bernard O’Donoghue’s own poems often hark back to his own childhood in Cullen near Millstreet.

Two of Dr. O’Donoghue’s poems will be recited today (Thursday) as part of the National Poetry Day celebration by Cork County Council.

Speaking to The Corkman, Dr. O’Donoghue said he considered the poem apt in the context of people retreating to their own homes or ‘safe houses’ during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The other poem which will be recited is ‘A Candle for Dolly Duggan’, a tribute to a much loved character around Millstreet in his younger days.

The poems can be heard on www.corkcoco.ie.

Safe Houses

I find that I have started recently to keep spare keys to the front door in several pockets, such is my fear of being locked out. Caught by the wind the door could shut quietly behind you, leaving you to face the outer world alone. Once safe inside I don’t put on the chain.

In guerrilla conflicts, the combatants change their safe house at intervals to give their hosts a rest from listening for the thump on the door in the early hours, as at the end of winter you escape from cold and dark by making for the sunnier climates to the south.

But where do we retreat to in the end when the call to open up will not subside? Kate in her nineties was no longer fit to mind herself, so they took her in to the Lee Road. When I called to see her the nurse unlocked the door to the main room and turned the key again behind me.

She was there with twenty other women, all chattering and laughing like the magpies in Purgatorio, not to each other but to the unhearing outside world.

I thought of Masaccio’s grieving couple, not grasping what they’ve been exiled from, some corner where the serpent cannot reach.