Fiddles and Flutes

Xaviera Ringeling is one of the most promising poetic voices nowadays. Her new collection Alba manages to combine philosophical introspection with a luminous but reflective language where space and place are central parts of her poetic output. Here we publish, exclusively, two of her new poems in English dealing with that never ending source of inspiration:  Irish music. Enjoy it.

Irish flute

I love how the Irish flute is always running away 

running away   trampling upon itself 

it turns into gushes of marine oxygen 

and it flees into rolling oblivion

and it flees light  crisp in the open air 

it escapes me 

and I escape myself 

as if the sea were made of my madness 

as if the opening bloom of dawn were

 –wings spread–

my forgiveness 

Back to the fiddle 

the pain of the cord sweet and sour 

against the skin of the bow 

again past the foothill into the moss 

of a secret internal forest 

to grow mushrooms in hiding

from the pit of my chest 

to let frail creatures

forage round my throat

and be lifted by the compelling

rustle of winged flapped

to be inwardly crisscrossed

by the haste of a starved fox

to be continually broken 

and put back together 

to ache skin raw

against the last chord

then sink and rest