Song Thrush – Poetry by Eamon O’Caoineachan

The Irish word
for the song thrush
is smolach ceoil—
pronounced
smull-uhk key-ol

Sing your song,
song thrush—
smolach ceoil

Like a blacksmith—
the song thrush smashes
the snail shells
over a stone—
its beak, the hammer,
the anvil, the stone.

The sound of hammer on stone
smolach
the sound of broken shell
ceoil.

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About the Poet

Eamon O’Caoineachan is a poet, originally from Co. Donegal, Ireland, but living in Houston, Texas. His work is published in the University of St. Thomas’s literary magazines Thoroughfare and Laurels, and he is the recipient of The Robert Lee Frost-Vince D’Amico Poetry Award and the Rev. Edward A. Lee Endowed Scholarship in English at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He is completing his MA in English and will pursue his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Houston. He is working on his first poetry collection and novella.