Michelle Boyle
Virginia , Ireland
Michelle Boyle’s work explores people and place from everyday life expressed in her distinctive spontaneous and fluid way. ‘
MessageThis is a poem I have written about the Canal, often a forgotten form of freshwater.
I think the stillness of a canal reveals if those around love or neglect it - Waste has nowhere to go.
Some banks are social hubs, some are now shady and deteriorating. The canal cannot refresh or cleanse itself, we must treat it kindly and remember its resilient past and help preserve its future.
The Water that does not choose its own path
Bridging Shannon to Liffey,
West to East Yet,
Isolated and confined
No birth or burial
Stagnant and unnatural
Almost in retaliation
A murky womb men cannot use
Water we fear to drink, eat, swim
Once the blood of an industry
Carrying coal, iron, tobacco
Unnatural materials along her unnatural path
And then
Obsolete
Too slow for the next world
She is still again
Looking for life after her purpose
An unexpected solace exists
In the stagnant waters we do not trust
A source of contemplation
A moment of refuge in the absence of current
This water cannot slide you elsewhere
Your dirty laundry will stay floating where it fell
An unerasable record of our actions
A reflection that stales on the surface
You cannot wash your sins in this water
Christine Mc Gearty 2023