Poems and Stories - 'Acupuncture' by Peter Makem

I think of a white haired figure

Bent over Ireland 

With their acupuncture needles

In the hood of the left hand.
I watch slow bony fingers 

Insert into a drumlin col 

Between Armagh and Monaghan,

And raising a head and lowering, 

Implant, slowly, deeply

Into joints of rock and bog. Then

In the tongue of the Bann

Entering Lough Neagh

Pierce firmly throatward,

Needles set along the Boyne, 

A needle entered in Kinsale 

And one deep at Ferrycarrig. 

Again I watch the bony fingers aim

Poised above Slieve Gullion

Between the Ring and mountain,

And all day worked away,

All night under the moon 

And out of the dawn hour’s entry

Oak came and beech and hazel,
Ash and sycamore and elm 

Filling hollow, crowding hill, 

And away at the edge of the land

At the far off river’s side,

A rough sailing boat 

Smaller and smaller there

Departing on the Foyle tide.

by Peter Makem - To purge Ireland and begin again