dreaming in the ksar es souk motel

4
Dreaming in the Ksar es Souk Motel Author(s): Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin Source: Irish University Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 63-65 Published by: Edinburgh University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25477104 . Accessed: 16/06/2014 07:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Edinburgh University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish University Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.126.196 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 07:05:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Dreaming in the Ksar es Souk Motel

Dreaming in the Ksar es Souk MotelAuthor(s): Eiléan Ní ChuilleanáinSource: Irish University Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 63-65Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25477104 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 07:05

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Edinburgh University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to IrishUniversity Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.196 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 07:05:03 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Dreaming in the Ksar es Souk Motel

Eil?an Ni Chuillean?in

Dreaming in the Ksar es Souk Motel

For Sean O'Faol?in

I

The hard sand

Moulded like the sea

Sleeps out dawn

Planing east

In shallow scoops of light

Folding over caves and graves

She sails within glass walls

As in a ship, her mouth

Dry with air that hisses

In iron corridors

Her food smells of engines Her share of water glows in a jug

A soft hum between

Her and the bird's cry Outside she sees dogs In dry riverbeds

Silent faces dark as the bark of trees

Pausing watch her drink

. . . There were roads

For wide-eyed fish muscling along She could see palms waving mile by mile.

Here she never tasted salt, but backward

63

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Page 3: Dreaming in the Ksar es Souk Motel

IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW

And forward in its short cage while she slept The square swimming-pool pounded.

II

Shift-click of night wave

Knight's move of current

Switching tides in a small square bay To land below grey pointed houses looming In clear air of daybreak

And a remote bell scares the flatfoot gulls

Walking up the ferry road

While from a chimney crest a blackbird looks

Severely down.

The bell rings seaward

Then reverberates uphill Where the pale road curves away Between dry white convent walls.

Standing on the wet flagstones you can see

Only the sidling road.

But follow the sound,

There are steps, lanes

High walls, darkness of sandstone

Valerian springing from cracks

Gutters and the ridges water makes in earth.

Out of sight the rivers persist

They riddle the city, they curve and collect

Making straight roads crooked, they flush

In ruined mills

And murdered distilleries.

Ill

It has to creep like water, it cannot jump or spread like fire

It needs to labour past mountains to be lost

To see the drops fall in the still.

Like snow like sleep it grows

64

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Page 4: Dreaming in the Ksar es Souk Motel

DREAMING OF THE KSAR ES SOUK MOTEL

Like a dream it accumulates like a dream flows

Underground and rises to be the same

It feels the drumming of the hare and it fears what's yet to come

Suffering the storm and hearing the slates crash in the yard.

IV

In summer dawn a mirror shines

Clear in the surprising light; The shadows all reversed point towards the sea.

65

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