---
title: "Journal"
url: "https://ruthocallaghan.com/poems/journal"
updated: 2026-10-12
description: "\"Journal\", a poem by Ruth O'Callaghan from A Lope of Time."
---

# Journal

And so we row keeping close to the shore,\
observe the lodge beavers skilled from aspens

bark and sapwood of twigs gathered close by.\
Farther out crosscurrents pull the boat,

re-define direction as the moon\
determines tides, ancient monarchies, the rule of law,

and held, half-held, beliefs filter through the years,\
shedding such light as they once possessed,

leaving evidence which we interpret as we will,\
as we wait, a half-forgotten language catching at memory.

***

But there’s absence – does that matter? Does distance?\
Time will betray essence

as skin, stretched over bones, reveals structure.\
Yet here is no knowledge, no certainty:

take time apart and what is left?\
Years in which shirt buttons are counted, a christening shawl

tracing a shroud. Perhaps that is the only true measure.\
Perhaps with each departure

there is not renewal but simply a re-visiting,\
a lope of time, the scratch of black and white film.

***

And so, unresolved, unable to distinguish\
that certain darkness between the stars,

we lay our oars to rest, remaining here where,\
the day dull and no birdsong,

rags of leaves disguise bare trees.\
A shiver of midges rises from the water,

those who can, evade the gape of fish,\
each small massacre Sicilian in scale,

though what lies just beyond the reach of memory\
is a darker, harder find.

_From A Lope of Time (Shoestring Press, 2009)_