by Sinéad McClure -
My great grandfather left Victoria at seven years of age, the
outback faded to orange on the horizon. The wave-gradient shifted
from turquoise to navy blue; the wildness of Australia never lost its
hue. My aunt left for Victoria aboard her fifties passage to a new
world, hugs faded from the platform—out of reach—marooned in
her heart.
My mother named distance a street of goodbyes. They were
always leaving, always waving into empty spaces. When news
came of my aunt's death the gulf grew even larger for there was no
good way to travel there. My sister left London, a swaddled toddler
held in the arms of the Irish Sea. We are children of the returned
and we know to be devoid of homeland is to be forever lost;
it's in the ripping out, the detachment. It's in the map of
vacant eyes and darkened hearts. It’s in the name of our fada and
the raven tumbling in from cirrus clouds, and it is westwards and it
is never coming home.
Sinéad McClure is a writer, radio producer and illustrator. Her work has been published in anthologies, print and online journals, including; Crossways Literary Magazine, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Live Encounters, Poethead, Drawn to the Light Press, The Cormorant, Dodging the Rain, A New Ulster, StepAway Magazine, Sonder Magazine, Tiny Spoon, Vox Galvia, The Poetry Bus, Ink Sweat &Tears and the Ekphrastic Review.
In 2021, Sinéad won the O Bhéal Five Words International Poetry Prize, first prize in The Wingless Dreamer Spring Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the MONO "Sanity" Prize.
Sinéad is influenced by nature, place and how the passage of time manifests in her work.