All Ways Home

A lone pilot searching for home amid starry frescos,

And little blood waves that mimic the tide-pull.  

Our insignificance! Our planet a crumb on the fabric of spacetime,

Sharing the same sky, you and I, wherever feet are anchored.

I will write your name on the moon with my fingertips, 

An apparition cast from memory's design.

Universe-whisper, orange as goldfish.

All I want is the delicious scent, the dark blue muddy shoes

and ruined grass of starlight, home.

Strawberry moon in the cloudless, blue black mystic, one day it could all be rain.

Those wind-swept words; voices clutched to our warmth,

Courage plucked from conversation.

Breezebreath, feel the blush dust my cheeks, the stars like old photos.

Leave the porch light on. The children dance, their mothers sing.

Everything changes all at once, the sky, the sun.

Bound with images of mystery, like lemongrass and sleep, except for the tree.

I look up. I see stars. They live forever inside me.

Home is the wild bitterness of backyard blackberries,

A bay tree, its fragrant leaves,

Breathing easy,

A smell so familiar it has none.

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Curated by Assoc. Prof. Paul Perry, with Professor Ian Davidson, Dr. Jessica Traynor, and Dr. Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi

Poets (UCD): Alison Martha Fagan, Ciara Mulherin, Lorna Donlon, Zandra Carrington, Jessica O’Brien, Sean O’Neill, Nina A. Devlin, Andrew Jeremy Nicoll, Kelly Michels, Elizabeth Paulsen, Maryanne Williams, Mary Irving, LJ Morris

Poets (Schools): 

Joseph O'Reilly

Megha Macharla
Grace Shelley
Evan Corrigan
Goran Roche Wynne
Chloe Monahan
Sultan Martins
Micheal Joseph Mac Phaidín
Nicole Lynagh
Sarah Thompson
Lilly Roys
Alyssa McDonald 

​

with thanks to Lily Cahill, Jennie Ryan, Simon O'Connor (MoLI), the JCSP Demonstration Library Project and Dr. Katie Mishler

Librarians and teachers: 

Kathleen Moran

Joe Kelly 

Eileen McDermott
Lorna Vogelsang
Rebecca Ford
Éadaoin Quinn
Carol Maloney
Joseph Peelo
Doreen Lundon
Sarah Ball
Hilary Cantwell
Anne Masterson
Jane Bingham-Shee

Engraving of the poem on the EIRSAT-1 Antenna Deployment Module cover

by Emer O'Boyle

Gallery