Flash floods. Big dams. The ambiguity
Of estuaries. The uncovering of sources …
In today’s unstable world, where does the conversation about the future begin? In Estuary, his fifth collection of poems, diplomat and poet Philip McDonagh celebrates personal relationships and reflects on public affairs in ways that cross cultural and civilizational boundaries. A common language of beauty, goodness, and hope gradually imposes itself.
“Philip McDonagh renders the world anew — with a sanguine eye, an abiding love for the beautiful, and an ear always astonished by the sound of something greater. Estuary unfolds as a bright and intimate paean to existence, inviting us to consider and reconsider our place in this vast phenomenon, ‘where for an endless instant our lives cross’.”
— Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe“Estuary is a book of marvellous things. McDonagh draws from deep wells, history, myth and memory and does so with an ear for song and lyric. His wandering spirit evokes landscapes and personalities in an elegiac and profound sense. Estuary is evidence of a deep engagement and faith in poetic form.”
—Joseph Woods
ESTUARY
At times, the birds act on one whim and migrate.
The reindeer armies darken the altogether
White tundra. And we humans make our moves
At one go; which can turn to an extreme
Event, a flash flood with panic and drownings.
The people who most fear loss are people like us.
We’ve worked hard, coding reality.
Our main ideas and manageable doubts
Are like big dams; the ebb and flow of thought
No longer decisive in any real sense.
Which means, at times the barrier to change
Is like a holdout, like a dam or wall
Waiting to crumble. But how things change becomes
At times creation, using every hand:
A source; and then the intricacies of sharing.
A river tumbles to the steadying sea.
The in-between world of a poem is like
The estuary, its muddy, dragging tide.
We’re right and wrong, both: without self-hate,
We face the deficiency in how we live.
The helpful undercurrents, we pick up;
Phrases, then shades of colour, then a theme;
Our music is heard by all. We operate
In the disguised frontier between two prayers,
Thy kingdom come; on earth, Thy will be done.
As when prince Gondla chose love’s open sea,
The currach of crystal and a green horizon.
Flash floods. Big dams. The ambiguity
Of estuaries. The uncovering of sources.
Unless there is something of the unexpected
In what happens, we won’t know where we are.
Call it a voyage; call it baptism.
Note: ‘Estuary’ was written as an opening chorus for the poet’s version of Nikolay Gumilev’s ‘Gondla’.
Estuary by Philip McDonagh
May 2026
90 pp
140 x 216 mm
