February 18, 2026

In this first day

of a fire horse year

chosen

in a calendar of human making

----- [Tsagaan Saar in Mongolia

----- Tsaagan sariin mend hurgie!]

I am in Kerry by the Irish sea

looking to hope

…even in grim times

as a friend and activist in Minnesota wrote me

At the Éigse na Brideoige festival ,

I improvised a dance ​

for Scéine - lost to the sea and

her husband Amergin

a story I have loved these many years

At Cill Rialaig Arts Centre,

I danced to old Hindi film songs

submitting to

ishq pyaar love

and two small humans came

and danced with me.​

Then someone asked Stephen Murphy

for a poem

and he spoke it then and there—

rocking back on his heels

in front of the fire.

Oh The Dream of Fódhla ​

Even a pain in my back

triggered by

carrying a suitcase

up the stairs

even that

keeping me

down —

helped me

touch earth

in new ways.

To slow down.

To carry less.

On February 21

a poem will appear

on Versopolis ​

about Europeans Indians and

curious seas

...fragments

of unruly forms

I don’t know where we

are going this year,

friends near and far

only

may we look to hope

to the delicate nests of wrens

the rookery of crows

the wild seas changing their

aspect every day as the wind

loves them into swells that

swill

tumble

crash

break —

be

Can a wave be anything else?

Can we live for the love of it?

This must be — it must be —

an antidote

for the grim.

In hope

Shebana

Shebana Coelho

info@shebanacoelho.com

​IG @farawayisclose.notes

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