The Author Who Lived

by Julia Dzonkowska

My life is already written. 

If today is the day I die

I can do nothing to overwrite that.

I feel the essence of life

Drip…drip…drop away

Out of my mortal body 

Into the bottomless pit.

I have fought my fight, 

I have given my blood

As was written.

Written by Julia Dzonkowska, as part of Poetry as Commemoration workshops led by Terry McDonagh, in Castlerea Community School, Roscommon, in  November 2022. Transition Year students were invited to write a poem in response to Terry McDonagh’s poem ‘My Freedom One Hundred Years Later’, written in commemoration of the War of Independence.