Peoples(For Lyn) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

She gathers
the world

into her
consciousness

holds its facts
like a beautiful blue

bunch
of wild flowers

clutched
tightly in her tiny fist.

All is alive
to her

whether it be sky
cloud or river...whatever.

Nothing is ever
only a thing.

Everything
is

“...peoples! ”

We visit & re-visit
the old pond

full of
“frog peoples”

who greet her
ecstatically

as if
she were one of their own.

She waves regally.

Speaks to them
fluently in frog.

Even stones become
“...the stone peoples! ”

She likes them
“...’cos they are so quiet! ”

“Their quiet is like a big noise in my head! ”

That night
trying to smuggle

her favourite cat
into her bed

snuggled up inside
her jumper

as if she were
pregnant with it

(it scratching & meowing
to be born)

she announces
(caught in the act)

“Cats is peoples too! ”

We give in to
her superior logic

seeing things
as she do.