Mary Duffy : Existir

The weary singer leans against the stone window ledge at the top of the cathedral where she has climbed to sleep beside the swallows after last night.... some small respite. She sang barefoot in the small taverna until almost daybreak only a lone guitar player accompanying her inspired by her song which rises transcendant with the dawn. She sings solo: Fado: "Saudades; Saudades".... She can't translate... There is no word in this heavy new language that expresses all the shades of sadness inside of her, all the tones of the country she has left behind her but carries still like a mourning cloak stitched into her very fiber. She picks up her suitcase and moves on... again.... one more time a slender silhouette a shadow alternating merging and moving against the grey dawn.

Mary Duffy was born in Dublin, Ireland; her mother's home but grew up on Red Island, Newfoundland which had been her father's family home for generations. She works as a librarian in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside/Chinatown. She writes regularly for "Luluzine", reads with the "Twisted Poets" and the "Carnegie Poets" and works as a board member for "Pandora's Collective". She is seeking a publisher for "Red Island Rocks"; a book of linked story-poems about resettlement.