Last Service in the Orthodox Synagogue

Thomas McCarthy

It was a soft day in Israel and more than a last Shabbat

When all the published pages of young David Marcus came apart

And fell again as vellum droplets of Cork rain. I looked

Back with undiminished love at the quires David made –

Even the last wet moon wore the courtesy of a yarmulka.

It’s not that our days have been young and fiery, but this day

Was as old as the seams on Maurice Hurwitz’s fawn coat.

Maurice, I miss you. But you would surely have come

With me. We might have been alone together the way

Friends can halve a lonely apartness, that feeling after

You’ve had to hide who you are. A London Rabbi told you how

They had machines beyond Ireland, new machines for killing

Jews. “Ah, Europe, the end of our beginning,” your father said.

We sing ‘The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee’ in Hebrew as all shuffle

Through the door. Your scrolls will be sent elsewhere; there will be

Nobody left to remember. As Cork’s barley-sugar melts in my pocket

I cross the iron bridge that was named by Mayor Goldberg and think,

Again, how this disturbed world still has important negative

Consequences for Jews. Ah, look here; grey rain for relief, the soft

Cork rain that fell for a century upon uncollated Irish leaves.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 121:

Edited by Eavan Boland

Eavan Boland's first issue as editor of Poetry Ireland Review aims to encourage a conversation about poetry which is 'noisy and fractious certainly ... but a conversation nevertheless that can be thrilling in its reach and commitment'. There are new poems from Thomas McCarthy, Jean Bleakney, Wendy Holborow, Paul Perry, Aifric Mac Aodha, and many others, while the issue also includes work from Brigit Pegeen Kelly, with an accompanying essay on the poet by Eavan Boland. Eavan Boland also offers an introduction to the work of poet Solmaz Sharif, while there are reviews of the latest books from Simon Armitage, Peter Sirr, Lo Kwa Mei-en, and Vona Groarke, among others. PIR 121 also includes Theo Dorgan's elegiac tribute to his friend John Montague – a canonical poet, in contrast to the emerging poets Susannah Dickey, Conor Cleary and Majella Kelly, who contribute new work and will also read for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series as part of ILFD 2017.