Jo Nestor, retired Adult Educator, now reads and writes fulltime. She writes book reviews for writing.ie; is featured in the 2021 Roscommon Broadsheet, Autumn Leaves; won the Leitrim Guardian Literary Award 2020; and was long-listed in June 2020 for the FISH memoir competition. She chooses to live in hope.
ATONEMENT
I heard a story today
about a woman and her dog
out walking near their home
past a ruined cottage
where the dog barked and barked
but would not pass or go in
but the woman did
and she stood
among the nettles
before the hearth
beneath the sky
between the walls
wherein she felt such sorrow
that she went home
to cook potatoes
in their skins
and she left her offering
served with butter
milky and soft
at the hearth
beneath the sky.
Kilcatherine, Beara, Easter Sunday, 2013.