The pain of separation

MEANTIME 

Meantime is the title of Majella Cullinane’s latest collection of poems. During Covid-19, 18,000km away from her mother in Ireland, Majella is feeling it. Her mother is succumbing to dementia and in the end she cannot attend her mother’s funeral.

"When I get back"

I’ll find your gravestone,

the black Celtic cross you chose,

your name and lifespan carved in marble.

I’ll bring you the trill of blackbird song,

a grey-blue sky, the murmuring of oak trees

behind the graveyard’s old stone walls.

Through the stars’ fading light,

I might hear you say,

Ah, you’re home now, you’re home.

What took you so long?

This is warm, loving and tough. Sometimes it just feels good to have read something good and true.

Reviewed by Hamesh Wyatt