Anne Rath offered a session on May 25.
Anne Rath is a writer, painter and psychotherapist newly moved to Cork city in Ireland. She has been leading writing workshops and retreats since 2011 and she has been a recipient of a Co Waterford Arts Bursary award and a South-East emerging artist award. She was long listed for Over the Edge New Poet of the Year in 2018. She is published in Ireland, UK and USA including Southward, Peregrine, Agenda, Orbis as well as online and Red House Poets recent anthology 2019. She is an Amherst Writers & Artist affiliate since 2014. She is currently working on her first collection.
We thank Anne for her leadership and these writers for sharing their work with us!
This Moment
by Linda O’Flaherty
this moment is a cluster
outside of time
reaching
onwards to infinity
this moment is a prayer
on bended knees
beseeching
upwards to divinity
this moment is a miracle
dissolving time
impeaching
floating in fluidity
this moment amazes
awes
and terrifies.
me
addicted to
my happenings
my comings and
my goings
inches from your face
beloved
I taste your smell
smell your words
hear me, see me, feel me
know me
everything is nothing
now
molten eyes
touching
cool clear mysticism
deep dark realism
now
I am bereft
all lost
nothing yet gained
your face is shattered
in a billion fractals
light becoming
beckons
one became two
we are fractured
now
me in you
born
un-raptured
I have come
to lose
your face
and face
my one
This Moment
by Edel Murphy
“This moment will forever define the young man” said Dr Kinsella.
Mary, his mother, stood in front of the man in the white coat, a stethoscope dangling around his neck like a stiff scarf. Her eyes were glossy with the tears that had begun to pool. Her body did not feel like her own. The colours in the room changed – almost immersing together. As the man continued to speak all she could focus on was his blue surgical mask. How it moved in and out with every breath he took. How the sides moved up and down as his cheekbones raised and fell while he spoke.
How was she going to break the news to Alex? He was fifteen, an impressionable boy who had just lost the only other constant form of love in his life, apart from hers. At fifteen, you would imagine him to be slightly grown-up, a little awkward and distant even. But, this was not him. In the evenings as she lounged on the couch watching her soap operas he would announce his arrival by tumbling onto the other end of the settee, hang upside down, head falling off the edge, long legs thrown over the back and grinning wildly. This had been his way to entertain her since he was a toddler.
At heart he was just a boy and now this news was going to catapult him into adulthood, before he was ready, before it was necessary – in the worst way possible.
Thank you for joining us to Write Around the World!
For the rest of the summer, watch our blog! We are sharing writing from AWA’s yearly marathon fundraiser, which happened this year all-online throughout the month of May.
We offer this series in appreciation for the incredible community of writers and workshop leaders that sustain us. If you’re inspired and would like to be part of the fundraiser, please donate!