Introducing … Cathryn Keefe O’Hare

Cathryn (a.k.a. Cathy) is the director of the North Shore Poets’ Forum.

“Summer’s August” is the first poem because she loves the month of August, even though it beckons autumn.

Summer’s August

By Cathryn Keefe O’Hare

August is an old summer soul
that ripens sweetly and droops
with heavy hints of fall
while bright-eyed goldenrod
nods its flashy plumes
to harvest tunes
playing in the garden,
tomatoes reddening,
zucchini lengthening

August is a last grand chance
for every summer wish fulfilled,
with days long still (shorter, shorter),
and warm nights candlelit on back yard patios,
screen doors slamming,
voices chuckling, murmuring,
mosquitoes buzzing, whack,
and everybody star dazed.

August is a heavenly fruition,
blooming memories of sandy lanes
tromped and grasses chewed,
lemonade stirred, sipped, sold, spilled,
childhood games that ran right into
first dates, cars cruising, hot nights steaming
with what to do, street lights sparkling,
and the moon sky high
with hopes and dreams.
…
And, August is then
gone,
too soon,
just an old summer fool
after all.

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A second poem grew from a trip to Ireland with my daughter in 2005.

How my daughter saw Clonmany

by Cathryn Keefe O’Hare

She loved the donkey by the narrow road,
sheep clustered on craggy hills,
stucco facades in all their pastels
and the very stillness of the land,
so green and rolling and teeming
with ghosts and fairies.

She loved the North Atlantic
waves that crash into ragged
rocks along the lonesome shore,
and dreamed of giant gnomes rising
out of the primeval cliffs to dance
under a moonlit dome of night.

I laughed and tramped with her
into the weedy cemetery
by the little church on the rise
to the town my grandparents left,
those moldy stones,
the secrets, the tears.

————————————————————————-

The third poem is called “Out There.” I’m not sure what it says … just something about God.

Out There

By Cathryn Keefe O’Hare

Somewhere in the wild universe
of black holes gulping starlight spectacles
that glimmer light years away, You live,
I hear, attending full well
to the man who stops today
in his grey, banged up car
by what might be called a heaven
of junk in front of a four-family
tenement spewing brown, broken things –
tables, lamps, consoles, stereos –
for pick-through delights

more microscopic than dust mites
in this whirl of worlds
winging off forever and ever
to
the end.
…

You are there, I am told,
and here, in trash bin offerings
of hope.
A mystery
beyond understanding.
…

The Blessed Virgin and a plastic duck
share a spot on a lawn of a ramshackle cottage
where muted pink paint contrasts blandly
with black shutters.
…

A woman emerges,
wearing shorts that hitch up at her inner thighs.
She hungers between worlds
hoping You see her faith,
her testimony to the beauty
near and far and beyond her grasp,
intangible
…

while galaxies gallop
into cruel, devouring infinite.
truly
could it be?
truly
beyond belief.