Ursula Mc Morrow lives and works in Connemara, Co. Galway, Ireland. She was educated  at the National University of Ireland, Galway where she has taught on the Masters in Education programme. She works in health and family support.

Her stay at Bushy Park Sanctuary with her husband Reinhold Hils in March, 2014 inspired the poem.

Sanctuary
At Frank Moore's Bushy Park
Wanganui, NZ

Alone in your mansion,
Secluded in ancient forest,
No sound but bird call.

Losing your whole family,
You piled stone on Palladian stone,
Made harmony and symmetry
a cocoon for the pain.

Raising champion stock,
with gleaming thoroughbreds
cutting a dash at the racecourse,
or filling the ballroom with laughter:
Your days were full.

You watched the weather
while Miss Connolly presided.

Scots Presbyterianism informed your times
and the days that were empty.

Gradually you retreated
from the elegant rooms
and grand corridors
to a fireplace within a curtained alcove
of your beloved Bushypark.
Still, cold.

Now wild birds watch  
as we tread the virgin forest.
They fear no predator:
your legacy a homage to nature,
a small triumph over
the randomness of death.


Ursula Mc Morrow