Winter Light - Poetry inspired by Winter Lights Dublin

Winter Light

Winter Light Poetry inspired by Christmas, Dublin and community.

Made as part of Dublin City Council Culture Company creative engagement programme for Winter Lights, a Dublin City Council event.

Winter Light

Part One Winter Light Poems Written in Enda Wyley’s online writing workshop for Dublin City Council Culture Company at Richmond Barracks Wednesday 4th November 2020.

Winter Light

Lamplighter

by Robert Cullen That room with the oil lamp cascades cold shadows around the room.

The heavy autumn flowered curtains keep out the cold from the large window pane.

You can see the frost setting on the glass. You can draw on the damp glass now.

My Father setting the fire looks like a tree to me, as he strikes the match to light the fire.

The cracking of wood lighting now gives more light in the downstairs parlour of the tenement house.

I can hear footsteps on the long hall going out the front door.

You can hear the noise from the old hinges as the draft comes under the door.

I look out of the window and the snowflakes are falling gently on the cobbled road.

There he is now, the old lamplighter with his ladder going to the next lamppost.

My mother says, It is time to go to bed.

Winter Light

Winter Morning

by Martina Kearney Winter mornings are different.

You know this even before you open your eyes. No slivers of sunlight sneaking under the curtains. My nose is cold.

Rolling up the blinds reveals today’s performance of mists, and droplets of dew on the few remaining leaves.

The frost has already softened.

And in this grey blurriness – colour!

Red, the breast of a Robin as he bounces on a bare branch.

He fluffs his feathery chest and warms the morning.

Winter Light

A Poem for Winter

by Margaret Mason Bright blue winter sky, a veil of frost, dark skeletal trees framing the view that summer hides.

The low sun, long shadows leading to dusk, a sprinkle of lights as darkness falls embracing us in its velvet arms.

Winter Light

Winter

by Jean Harrison Winter is but the end of all, the end of Autumn, Summer and Spring.

End of growth in almost all things.

And yet it has its own repair as old plants die and nature is pared to almost bare.

Artificial heat warms our bones and encourages us to an earned laziness by fires.

Reading books and other easy pursuits without the guilt of inactivity which Spring and Summer and Autumn feeds.

Winter Light

Mixed Memories

by Jo Kennedy The perfect, silent, dropping beauty of Silent Night in the church on Christmas Eve – pains my heart– brings back memories.

Grey, not white, is my Dublin in winter.

Darkness at 4pm, lights peering through half-light.

Dark clothes, muffled faces, and this year – masks! But we can make the dark grey Sing.

Winter Light

Winter 2020

by Ann Kinsella A lone grey heron feeding by the river.

As the train trundles by on the track Worried workers with their backpacks.

Disease and despair.

Haunted eyes, hiding faces.

Elderly looking through glass in sick places.

A winter morning icy cold.

Social distancing, signs in yellow hue.

A new president new and blue.

Winter Light

My Window

by Anne-Marie Butler No curtains in my window but a soft candle lights up the winter night.

Winter Light

Silent Night, Holy Night

by Monica Kennedy Silent Night, Holy Night.

Frosty morning, hot tea in big mugs nestling in cupped hands.

Woollies, jumpers, hats, coats, scarves, bright red lipstick on chapped lips.

Strong wind cutting through clothes, lights from shops and houses and phones and lampposts Silent night, Holy Night.

A nod from a neighbour, a beep from a car, a passing bus, a phone, a shop register, a bag full of shopping.

Silent Night, Holy Night.

The key in the door, the telly, the smells, the broken blind.

Warm and dark at one.

Silent Night, Holy Night.

Winter Light

Winter

By Anonymous The whirl of Winter brings fading leaves, grey darkenings, chills and gloom – though also comes the gladden your hearts moments of flickering candles, tree lights, festive celebrations and calm.

Caught amid the consumerism and the odd family itch, the pleasure of the new year flows and finally, bright white skies follows.

Winter Light

Winter Lights Gifted To Our Community

by Ruby Mary Conway Splash the colour, light the dark, lift the fear, make the spark.

Run the gauntlet, touch the stone, cold turn it to bright, relief to behold.

Set the town alight, lose the winter’s sombre mood, stand there looking even bring the brood.

Loss of the day’s sun marks the interlude of dusk, bring it on quickly now, then dark makes the lights sparkle with fun Dublin’s beauty, integrity and form unleashes gifts of unknown secrets to me, to one and to all.

Look up from dark to the new norm.

Winter Light

Musical, literary, political and religious jewels humbly await the splashes of light.

Self-sufficient though they are, gain and blossom from complimentary tools.

Some think the adornment fatuous.

Most people welcome all the relief.

No matter how small from the now accepted grief.

Come sing the carols, the supplicants to God. The background mostly dark.

Hark! Pay attention with eyes and ears.

The heraldic colours ape the rainbow, different shapes challenge the eye.

Give magic forms to sooty dark, give rise to all to arch the brow.

Busy beauty reaches the crescendo.

Tired standing hours to drink in the cheer of lights projected, fighting hard against being cavalier.

Time to go home to bed, dream of all the gaieties instead.

Thank you my town for all the work highlighting the jewels with astounding quirks.

Winter Light

Part Two Winter Light Poems Written in Maeve O'Sullivan's content haiku workshop for Dublin City Council Culture Company at Richmond Barracks Thursday 5th November 2020.

Winter Light

Winter sunrise Framed A lone robin - Helen Goodman

orange sky descends early sunset, darkness falls, heavenly black ink - David Tracey

Frosty night: Multitudes of stars out-twinkling each other.

- Helen Dredge

Winter Light

slivers of morning light slowly puncture sleep as the clocks go back - Kristina McElroy

my sleep awakened by the full silvery moon curious but not disappointed - Colette Casey

Winter Light

November – lights on the canal, a lone swan cherry blossom long gone, bare branches sparkle with light days shortening untangling the lights leaves crunch underfoot – above the church a blue moon surprise dark November Inchicore children singing the lights on - Áine Hayden

Winter Light

Richmond barracks Something to die for. something to live for.

The rolling of the clouds The sun still trying to look out between clouds dark grey and white If the barracks could talk, the Granite stone would light up the sky.

The sound of soldiers, marching 120 paces to the minute in the great courtyard.

- Robert Cullen

Winter Light

Part Three Winter Light Poems Written in Colm Keegan's poetry workshop for Dublin City Council Culture Company at Richmond Barracks Monday 2nd Novemeber 2020.

Winter Light

‘Winter’s Way’

by Aaron Dowling The sun’s light fades faster To the deep dark of night People and animals hide away To evade the cold’s stinging bite The trees grow dull Now bare of their leaves Quiet, mourning their loss To seasonal thieves When the days are cold And we may lack desire when times seem dull We must ignite our inner fire We take comfort in festivity In togetherness, in song Giving joy to our days So the nights won't seem long Just as the cold winter This virus will end too We must find warmth in people We’ll no doubt make it through.

Winter Light

Winter is deathly skeletal barks like skinny worn fingers n the park, but orange glittering dancing leaping full green and bauble sheen the rooms of night.

The din of heels echo in cavernous shop fronts, The damp creeping assiduously in forgotten clothes Finally soaks through, A sodden bag for dreams under star-rent skies.

Apricity, The warmth of the sun in winter, Obscured but not erased, Bursts forth With the surprise of memory; The heat of first love, The generosity of a child’s laughter.

- David Tracey

Winter Light

I Caught between celebrations and hibernation, I never really strike a balance in December.

Caught between celebrations and hibernation, I never know what winters really want of me.

II Winter is the time of my childhood, when I witnessed the most intense, warm, purple sky, on the coldest night ever.

Thousands of years later, I still carry them in my heart.

- Alexandra Bideaua

Winter Light

Merriment of hearth Fools jumpers Parade in the streets - Margarita Vasquez Cardenas

skeleton trees and tacky lights darkening days and cosy nights holding each other near the greatest thing this time of year - Jade Connell Carroll

The lonely face at the window Eyes closed to the scene within Cannot bear the baubles the joy denied to him.

The children he won't father Hope not to be renewed The yearly promise unfulfilled: Christmas solitude.

- April Cronin

Winter Light

Weak, warm, sunlight Strong, warm, sharing Stillness in me.

Warmth -Suzanne Donnelly

Liminal daze to Treat ourselves Briskly in the brittleness.

Overfamiliar reinvention The monotony of hope Well, there’s a beauty in that -Evan Musgrave

Winter Light

Thanks to all our workshop participants: Bernadette Barrington, Alexandra Bideaua, Ruby Ann-Marie Butler, Margarita Vasquez Cardenas, Colette Casey, Mary Conway, Robert Cullen, Aaron Dowling, Jade Connell Carroll, April Cronin, Suzanne Donnelly, Helen Dredge, Helen Goodman, Jean Harrison, Ă ine Hayden, Jo Kennedy, Martina Kearney, Monica Kennedy, Ann Kinsella, Margaret Mason, Mary Matthews, Kristina McElroy, Evan Musgrave, David Tracey.