Cold Hill Pond

Michael McCarthy

£5

978-1-902382-96-8

Michael McCarthy grew up on a farm in West Cork, Ireland. His first poetry collection Birds’ Nests and Other Poems won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. His children’s books have been translated into seventeen languages.

He works as a priest in North Yorkshire.

"What I love about Michael’s poetry is the extraordinary specific detail, the pictures painted by the juxtaposition of words. It sings with a poetic intelligence. It moves me: the people, the memories, the vividness of detail." – Sinead Cusack

THEOLOGICALLY SPEAKING

i.m. Tess Carr 1921-2003

The Church: there beside the lake
hunchbacked against the wind
since eighteen-fifty-four.

In the background
Cardinal Wiseman's cedar
growing taller every year.

Close by: the grass cut
the undergrowth cleared away
the small wooden cross now obvious.

'Who's burried here?' I ask.
'Bernadette', she says.
My eyebrows puzzle;
'The cat'.

Realising this wasn't
your average cat I hesitantly suggest,
'it's not a matter of being small-minded
or anything, but theologically speaking
Jesus didn't die for cats.
Could the grave be marked say by a shrub?'

Over a medium-sized pause
my suggestion is dismissed.

'She did enough for this Church.
Everybody loved that cat.'

Theology would have to please itself.
May Bernadette have eternal rest.

– Michael McCarthy, from 'Cold Hill Pond' (Smith/Doorstop)