A Man in a Distant Field by Theresa Kishkan

movement, loving the sight of birds feeding on its shores, fishing its depths with their strong bills.
    There were days when he felt close to Odysseus, when working on parts of the poem that were Odysseus’s story he would stop and think of it as his own story. But truth be told, he had never done anything bold in his life. He’d left his parents’ house to be educated, returned to that very house with a wife, fathered two daughters, taught children the basics of reading and writing and simple geometry at the Bundorragha school, as well as the Irish history and grammar that had been his ruin, taking them on walks by the river below the school to see the trout, the yellow flags of iris. Odysseus journeyed home over a period of years, stopping here and there to prove his worth to gods who had no use for him, but then he was protected by the grey-eyed Athena and managed to survive—although he had lost his men,not least among them young Elpenor. He was not only brave but also clever and could outwit the obstacles in his way. Declan had journeyed a long way by sea but alone. And the biggest difference between them? Odysseus was struggling homeward to a wife and son. Declan had no one. Home was a far country that he wanted no part of.
    He left off his musings and gathered some wood to make a little beach fire to cook his salmon. Mrs. Neil had shown him a way to roast the fish, in turn shown her by Lucy, the Indian woman who had known this bay as a child. He made a fire, using alder sticks from a stash he had cut from branches found on the ground. First he cut off the head of the fish, saving it to roast for Argos. Opening the salmon, he flattened it as well as he could by splitting the backbone. Sharpening a long green stick, he threaded the salmon lengthwise, using slits he’d cut into the tail end, the middle, and the top. Two thin sticks were woven horizontally through slits along the edges of the fish to keep it open and flat. Another long stick was lashed to both ends of the first stick to offer it some support and strength. Once the fire had burned down to hot coals, he staked his salmon on one side of the fire, angled so it leaned into the smoke and heat, then added more alder.

    They had wanted Grainne to have music lessons. She’d been taught rudimentary fingering for the harp by an old woman in Leenane who had played the harp in her youth. Another local woman, though from farther afield, would stop in to offer Grainne assistance from time to time, but she was the mother of a large family living in an isolated area so her visits were regrettably few and far between. At first Grainne’s fingers bled—thewire strings were like nothing her hands had encountered and her fingernails were not long enough to allow her to pluck in the traditional manner—but eventually calluses formed, her nails grew, and she coaxed song after song from the plangent strings. She learned to read music, a language in itself, and studied the sheets for hours, humming bars and tapping out sections to learn the timing. She would listen to a tune at a ceilidh, say a fiddle piece, and Declan could see her lips move, her fingers pluck the air as she transposed the song in her mind. A daughter from one of the wealthier families, Maeve Fitzgerald, had studied harp for a time at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, and she passed along her workbooks to Grainne. It was the latter’s hope to sit for the Local Centre Examinations and perhaps go on to the RIAM herself. She became very proficient, playing whenever she could, and the music eased them through the dark winter afternoons.
    Legend told of the wife of Dagda, a faery king, who had given birth to three strong sons. During her confinements, Dagda’s harpist played to make the pains of the labours pass more easily. As the first son was being born, the harp moaned sadly, as if in pain. During the second labour, the harp’s music was merry and light. And