THE YELLOW RIVER - Seán McSweeney & Gerard Smyth
The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.
The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.
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POEM BEGINNING WITH A LINE FROM F R HIGGINS
Our most lovely Meath, now thinned by November
with its days too short to leave and return.
Suddenly it’s a winter of bare thorn,
songbirds with only half-a-song.
Pastures are empty, herds have been sheltered.
The sea once a generous giver
now has nothing to give. No one swims in the river,
whoever wades in will never come back.
Up on the hills, in an allegorical landscape,
there’s a fallen tree – its growth rings
recording the ages that lead to the wood-burner’s
flames, the carpenter’s nails
or the floor of wood shavings
in the workshop of the furniture-maker.
The snow that falls during winter in Meath
doesn’t last long – but minute by minute
vanishes to reveal the bog
where the buried are carefully hidden
from the diviner. No tell-tale signs
only a reminder that this is the shadowy bog of riddles.
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