Gavel

Eoin Devereux

From the rough slanted field
A streel of a scarecrow
Bears witness,
To a brimful cup left on the doorstep,
An extra place at the kitchen table,
An empty chair by the fire,
A crossed, still-warm, loaf on the slender windowsill,
An offering to lost souls
Who sometimes pass
In the night,
Straying,
Between here and there.

Darkness drops early,
In these quarter days,
But, the flickering of the Bonfire
Permits her to see,
The masked mummers,
Who traipse
From door to door,
Clown-making,
Seeking gavel.

Eoin Devereux writes poetry and short fiction. His work has been published by The Irish Times and broadcast on the Poetry Programme RTE Radio 1, Dublin, Ireland. His poem ‘Frances Murphy’ was published in The Stony Thursday Book edited by Martin Dyar. In an Hiberno-English context, the word ‘Gavel’ was traditionally understood to mean a gift or a prize.