Poems

by

Brian Power

→ Go to Table of Contents

Bayleaf Publications

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Copyright © Brian Power 2006 Cover Design: Alice Campbell Printing: Leinster Leader, Naas, Co. Kildare ISBN 0 9527922 1 6 First published 2006. Bayleaf Publications, c/o Sue Ryder House, Dalkey, Co. Dublin. bayleaf@eircom.net All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful to the editors of publications in which some of these poems have appeared or are due to appear. They include News Four, Riposte, Spirituality, and various parish newsletters. Readers of Riposte, who voted a piece from a previous collection by the author as their first choice for the year 2005, merit a special mention. Several people gave much appreciated help with suggestions, selection and compilation. Foremost among these are the members of the Bayleaf Publications team who have continued to provide the advice, practical assistance and encouragement without which this collection could not have been completed. They are Paddy Morton, Gerry and Winifred Jeffers, and Doreen Browne. Brian Power is a retired priest. On leaving school he worked for three years in the Electricity Supply Board. After theological studies he was ordained in Rome, then served in hospital and university chaplaincies and in parish ministry in Larkhill/Whitehall, Inchicore, Bray, South Boston (when pursuing graduate studies at Boston College), Dun Laoghaire, Rialto, Sandymount, Ballybrack and Killiney. Having had two short story collections published by Egotist Press and Tansey Books, he received a Hennessy Award in 1973. After that he collaborated in social research and the production of reports, sponsored by Dun Laoghaire Drugs Awareness Group, the Medico-Social Research Board, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Ireland and the National Council for the Elderly. His article and stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines, including Travel Express, Eirigh, Caritas, Reality, The Furrow, The Irish Press, Arts in Ireland, Aquarius, The Sunday Independent, The Remnant, The Sunday Tribune, Intercom, The Journal of Irish Literature, The Irish Catholic, The Catholic Standard, Link-Up, Spirituality, Doctrine and Life, and Books Ireland. This is his fourth collection of poems.

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Table of Contents

New Rain on Flags 7 Tragedy in the Livingroom 8 Dying 9 Burial of a Freedom Fighter 10 Waiting 11 Grey Rock 12 After All these Years 13 On Retreat in Marianella 14 After a Blizzard in Dun Laoghaire 15 Hope for Russia 16 Morning Prayer 17 Striving 18 Wrong Place Wrong Time 19 Clearing Shelves 20 Rich and Poor 21 Prayer? 22 Fly 23 Vanishing Angels 24 Jesus 25 To a Friend in Dementia 26 Stumbling 27 Rejection 28 Death of a Young Poet 29 Mighty Words 30 Scandals 31 To a Young Friend in Prison 32 Faith 33 Jesus Saves 34 Dear Suburban Dweller 35 A Silver Anniversary 37 A Poem for Noel 38 Victims 39 What Can One Do? 40 The Final Horror 41 Where are the Clowns? 42 Silver Wedding 43 Frailty 44 For Pope John Paul 11 45 Twilight 46 Early Morning 47

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Tuesday 8th June 2004 48 The Hedge 49 Mission Sunday 50 Transit 52 Walking the Strand 53 For Sheila Calling 54 For Csezlaw Milosz 55 Running Out of Witches 56 Lighthouse Blinking 57 Night Prayer 58 Some Thoughts for Rock Fans 59 Greeting Old Friends 60 The End is Consolation 61 Wings White on Black 62 September Sun 63 Vocation 64 Finding the Healer 66 A Bardic Nurture 67 Welcoming Sparrows 68 Remembrance 69 The Man Who Believed the Newspaper 70 Was it a Moorhen? 71 A Sort of Sharing 72 Memorial Letter for Bishop Des 73 A Sociologist Looks Back 74 January Morning 76 Near Thing on Lesley Avenue 77 Holy Thursday 5.30 a.m. 78 At Sandycove 79 No Lasting City 80 CHILDREN’S CORNER To a Grandnephew 81 Children’s Corner: A Christmas Story 82

Back to top

7

New Rain on Flags

Some moments freeze for us.

Half a century ago

after Compline in Roscrea Abbey

a farmer sniffed the dampness and said,

There’s no smell on earth more wonderful

than new rain on flags.

I looked sideways. What did I expect

to see? Angel eyes beaming

in that weather-beaten face?

What I saw was eyelids closed

and thick lips curled round

the stem of a drowning pipe.

The voice goes on echoing when

challenges besiege the mind. Back to top

8

Tragedy in the Livingroom

We grew up carefree

or miserable in private sorrow.

The young seem nobler now

and since television exploded

dark secrets in the livingroom

they organise collections

to relieve famine far away.

And yet – last night I saw

a soldier bayonet a boy

who died there at our feet

and nobody screamed

or rushed to block the scene

and still I am not sure

whether that death was real

or merely entertainment. Back to top

9

Dying

Sometimes death seems a friend

too slow in coming. I recall

a boy thin as a cane

chest heaving in effort

to breathe. He found the strength

to whisper, ‘I don’t want to die’

and I longed to have the power

to say, ‘You need not die’.

The young cling to life

as nature dictates they should;

but is it the pain rather than

the passing that most of us fear? Back to top

10

Burial of a Freedom Fighter

In the graveyard of the saints

at Clonmacnoise

on a cold clear day we buried

Lorcan’s father

who had suffered too long for tears.

Beneath the cross

his wife lay waiting in the sand-fine clay.

Boy soldiers fumbling

with rifles and bayonets firing

poorly timed volleys

reminded us this coffined body fought

an almost forgotten

foe. From marshy lakes

the trumpeter’s reveille

stuttered back a hesitating echo. Back to top

11

Waiting

I wanted to parcel her in my arms

and undo the laced mysteries at her throat

but the Spirit of the Lord said, Wait,

wait until Adele invites you in.

So, I waited

and waited. Back to top

12

Grey Rock

A roomful of landscapes

was what you left your wife to sell

when you and your future died.

Your grey rockface with a ripple

of blue sea beyond it –

that kept one buyer trustful

of the co-creative power

of hymns to honour the earth. Back to top

13

After All These Years

At once I know her –

that face unforgettable

though in a crowd.

She knows she’s still attractive.

I like that.

Lines people call crows’ feet

cannot scar her

but serve to sprinkle pleasantries

on her admirers

who form a ring around

her epicentre

oblivious of perils

that lie within. Back to top

14

On Retreat in Marianella

Three people in a field

strangers to each other

with independent pursuits -

a woman with unleashed terrier

at her call, a listless boy

striking hurley to leather ball,

and me soul-stirring.

Chestnut king, you’ll bury

all three if you’re not levelled

to make room for a conference

hall. Familiar shrubs

have been gobbled by builders’

blades. Wildcats still

crawl in long grass watching

for winged feeders dropping

to insects from the seeming

security of your embracing

branches. Do those others

know someone is watching

with benign intent? Back to top

15

After a Blizzard in Dun Laoghaire

A bluebacked magpie, satin belly fat,

lights on bare branches in an apple tree.

Below a cat is making furtive tracks

in search of food – no arctic play for her.

The snow gown on the far-off head of Howth

is ragged, muddied; thawing has begun.

No sign of the ferry mooring (the crew’s on strike).

The bay lies placid, pale in winter sun,

nothing stirring save confetti squalls

of gulls on reconnoitre. Television

and radio chronicle yesterday’s losses

but our window greets the splendour of today. Back to top

16

Hope for Russia

Can you describe this? a woman asked.

Akhmatova said, I can.

A clinical sun dissected

the cloud above the prison wall

where Akhmatova with food parcels

waited in line, savant eye

recording the moment for a day

when people might dare leave poems

lying open on kitchen tables. Back to top

17

Morning Prayer

A voice from three thousand years ago

warns of the shortness of life

that we may gain wisdom of heart.

Knowing is one thing, understanding another.

When he finished writing Psalm Eighty-nine

did the poet stay quiet for the rest of the day?

He’s not around for us to ask how he felt

about a job well done. What was his name?

Did King David commission his work?

Give success, he prays, to the work of our hands.

Whatever your name was, dear scribe,

the work of your hand has endured. Back to top

18

Striving

Poems I write

when dreaming

leave no trace

beyond a feeling

they have pierced

the dark more keenly

than any I completed.

Straining to retrieve

my masterpiece from

the vault of perfectibility

I face another failure

and garner a redeeming

joy from the heroic

act of striving. Back to top

19

Wrong Place Wrong Time

I felt I was in the wrong place at the time –

who knows if it was really the wrong time?

I knew that people in a time of war

or famine had reason to feel this way

and was aware that nothing like war or famine

had ill-starred my life. War never

came closer than my father being called

for air raid protection duties on the night

a short-sighted German pilot dropped a bomb

on a Dublin suburb.

But when it was proposed the Gothic church

where I was titular director be restored

and I agreed because it seemed so noble

to preserve a thing of beauty, I murmured

‘I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time’.

But who knows if the time was really wrong?

All I knew was this time and place could never

seem right again to one who had forsaken

book-keeping for shepherding a segment

of God’s good people. God needs

accountants too but an accountant

turned shepherd and turned back again

can only grumble quietly to his soul. Back to top

20

Clearing Shelves

Too much sorrow too much pain my eyes have seen

but anyone alive has seen as much

now that the world’s encompassed in a box.

From the dark November void, where those have gone

who were my intimates, quiet voices speak.

But other voices whisper from the shelves

whose timbre I recognise from reading

history and fiction. No matter which

they tell of worlds and aeons of grief and loss

until my heart cries out to God in protest.

Now I who’ve sprinkled dead pages with useless

tears must entrust the world to Jesus

crucified and risen. Save for that Holy Book

my books I must in sacrifice sweep

from their shelves. May others cherish them. Back to top

21

Rich and Poor

Am I brother to the rich man Dives

watching Lazaruses by the thousand

struggling to survive?

Worrying not acting

sometimes I cast crumbs

more often plan for others

to bring justice. Any time

I throw open my door

danger comes in with Lazarus

for Lazarus cannot be relied on

to behave in genteel fashion. Back to top

22

Prayer?

Is this prayer? I asked the air

or am I praying to myself

seeking an undeserved rest

putting off washing the delph…

What is the test of real prayer?

Is it where God approaches

through an immensity of listening

for my too rare silences? Back to top

23

Fly

You cling winter fly

to the sunlit paint

of the window sill

your life filtering out -

perhaps you do not know ?

When human life is ebbing

we know it as we cling

to the loves that warmed

but cannot hold us. Back to top

24

Vanishing Angels

Where were the guardian angels when the mushroom

cloud descended on Nagasakai?

Where was the Angel of that city?

Where were the guardians of the little ones?

Why did they not turn the cloud back in its course?

Perhaps the angels of the scientists are teaching

mighty minds what happens

when atoms and such tiny forces are split.

Everyone needs a guardian angel.

Especially the scientists.

Maybe even more so politicians.

And theologians.

And I must not forget myself.

Yes, all of us.

We must not let our angels disappear. Back to top

25

Jesus

Sometimes it’s like loving a ghost

the torment of absence being as great

as the fervour of the first emotion.

Theologians distinguish the historical Jesus

from the Jesus of faith. Either way

you can be equally elusive.

Yet I know I cannot rouse myself without you

know there’s an Evil I can’t face without you .

Jesus, pointer to the stars,

sign me through the mire. Back to top

26

To a Friend in Dementia

You knew not only Christ

but many of his saints

about whose lives you wrote

thousands of pages.

You have forgotten them all

even Christ -

but surely Christ will still

remember you. Back to top

27

Stumbling

As a child will offer a daisy chain

to the mother who helped him make it

so I offer gifts to the hidden

creator who bestows them

and waves as through a window

at me trying to stumble upward. Back to top

28

Rejection

Dear Editor, I wrote, no need to apologise.

If my work’s not up to standard

you should not dream of printing it.

What I wanted to say was difficult:

Old friend, you’ve always encouraged

my efforts; I realise I’m straining

to preserve my mind as my body

fails, and descend to writing

for the sake of writing, something

we both know a writer should not do.

29

On the Death of a Young Disabled Poet

Physically challenged?

One way of describing a condition

that demands surrender or the will to fight

to conquer limitations.

And it’s true we all have those to overcome;

we can acknowledge that though deep inside

nothing contradicts

the facts – inability to walk, to prattle

as other children do. Communication

was the great challenge

and with parental care you achieved that

in ways that were subtle and unexpected,

poignant now poetry

remains as reminder of the difference

that after years of perseverance became

your strength.

For everyone who loved, suffered and cared.

30

Mighty Words

Transusbstantiation and Transignification

are mighty words that encompass

separate worlds of meaning.

The one who receives the wafer

that falls light upon the tongue

asks no question about meaning

as she entrusts her life to an eternal

simplicity she does not seek to define.

31

Scandals

The wind last night blew down a sycamore

whose dominance, we assumed, would last for ever.

Looking back, seeing so much brittle

valour, acknowledge the well meant lives

of many castigated by youthful judges.

The pity of intentions undermined

by human flaws should stir us always and

remind us once we choose to mount a crate

someone is bound to throw a rotten orange.

Platforms need to be solid in construction

to withstand assault. Throw away the crate.

32

To a Young Friend in Prison

Remember this carefully.

The crimes you were sentenced for

were no greater than many committed

by magnates at boardroom tables.

Yours were public; there’s the difference.

Never lose awareness of your value

and know you’ll have a life to steer

again. Thirty seems young

to a septuagenarian.

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Faith

Faith is a feminine flame

fanned by the breath of the Spirit

who on the waters of gentle Jordan

celebrated the wonder of Jesus

as God’s begotten for all time.

See, she said, Mary’s joy

and saviour. With Mary

stay close, and listen.

34

Jesus Saves

‘Jesus saves’, Jimi Hendrix wrote

drafting the lyrics of ‘Purple Haze’.

Before he overdosed he was reading

two books – one on flying saucers,

and a Bible open beside his bed.

And I too believe, dear Jesus,

you whom we call the Lord,

that you went with full consent

into the void that swallows

all human loves and dreams.

You lived and died to free us

from blind life without purpose

placing beacons to light a road

that our sin-dimmed eyes might follow.

35

Dear Suburban Dweller

There is a world around the corner

where your rules don’t hold

a world you barely notice

pregnant with discontent

waiting to engulf you.

Ignore it at your peril

respectable citizen.

Have you not noticed how the bodies

are falling closer to your door?

36

A Silver Anniversary

‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person’

the postman said.

He was of course a concerned parent

grim in pursuit

of juvenile crime. His dismissive sarcasm

comes to mind

when someone mentions it’s twenty-five years

since Luke crashed

skidding on a frozen spill on the coast road.

His mate walked

from the passenger seat, unable to believe

what had happened.

‘I never saw Luke crash a Merc before’, he said.

Could anyone mourn

a young man who created so much mayhem?

Two days beforehand

Luke had called out to me from a cafe table

in the shopping mall

where he sat with Mandy and a circle of friends

in his new grey suit

(probably off the peg of the establishment)

while security guards

cavorted to protect mouth-watering fancies.

‘Join us for breakfast’.

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Luke waggled a jewelled finger for attention,

and I found myself

entertained to sausages and eggs by

this five foot Capone

who was so agreeable and so chatty

I remember him that way.

‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person,’

the postman said.

But before he crashed the Merc Luke contrived

to be nice to me

and I’ve always remembered the lad that way.

38

A Poem for Noel

When frantic hope is slain

peace comes alive

and little things bring joy

in the unexpected –

a little girl strains high

to cast the Star

to the top of our Jesse tree

and a grandnephew

presents me with his poems

showing me how to rhyme.

On the path from Killiney Hill church

red fuschias are in bloom

and I think of friends at rest from

the fret of buying baubles

in this season of new birth.

Christmas 2003

For Anne Clear, Rory, Alan and Conor

39

Victims

Humanity knows it’s flawed

and looks for scapegoats to bear the blame.

A boy has died

needlessly in a drunken brawl.

Jail his killers?

Yet he might have lived to stand in the dock

and one who kicked him

senseless might have taken his place

in a premature grave.

Who should be called murderers?

Those who lavished

free drinks on the young? Jokers

who spiked the drinks?

Those who built a society that allows

children to run riot

until the more guileless guilty are old enough

to be locked away?

those who satisfy a crowd clamouring

for a crucifixion?

Forget the questions. A victim

has been found -

the boy who came nearest to telling the truth

about that terrifying night.

40

What Can One Do?

What can someone like me do about little ones

in Iraq? Others see an old man drooling.

I cannot see my spent state so. Although

not fooling myself as to my weakness

I know that strength lies in our trust. We travel

blind always and sometimes screaming towards

where Christ will make clear what’s hidden

and restore tortured bodies with his vitality.

As for this world, it goes on turning, one regime

following another. Cyrus conquers Cyrus

but a modern Cyrus having read the Aeneid

may yet try to make amends (late for some)

and console a little those who march for peace.

41

The Final Horror

To die elegantly

is difficult

unless nurses are in attendance

someone to hold your hand

someone to bless your going.

The final horror of war comes

when no one’s left to care.

42

Where are the Clowns?

Salute those who dare to be funny

in a world of chaos. We need

comedians to protect us

from life’s absurdities.

Yet have you noted on the screen

the eyes of Ronaldhino

the ever-smiling playmaker

emitting a flash of pain

as he jives his way towards goal?

43

Silver Wedding

As the band was playing SWEET CAROLINE -

honestly, that’s the farewell tune they played –

I remember your friends cheering clapping

YOU as you danced from the floor of the hotel.

Men looked stolidly towards Killiney Bay

while mothers wept and sisters smothered tears

of joy for your hoped for happiness

of sorrow for your breaking the circle

of anxiety for you setting out

on your journey of exploration.

Now that you’ve arrived at this renewal

of promises easier to make than keep –

perhaps! – look back in wonder at what

you’ve achieved, and scan the scene

ahead with the serenity of trust.

But we who love you harbour wishes

for your future that flow beyond the bay

of blessings where your dance began.

May your dance continue happily with all

who’ve been drawn into the music of your love

44

Frailty

Three o’clock in the morning.

It’s time for the obligatory

leak. The spirit’s willing

but the flesh – yes, you have it,

it’s the flesh that’s weak.

A tweak from the memory

strings and the history

of the failure of all humanist

endeavour is reconstructed

as sleep regains control. That’s the way

we were fashioned from the genesis

of the race. Resolve gives way

to sleep despite intentions

of staying awake and alert.

45

For Pope John Paul 11

Some said you should retire

and maybe they were right.

Yet the faith your persistence showed

brought solace and strength to many.

It’s true you grew too old

to steer a rudderless church

but to the outside world

you were a Christ figure

stretching arms to embrace

suffering, serene in your role

at the centre of a maelstrom.

46

Twilight

From the veranda this twilight

a lone sail can be seen

crossing the horizon

and a prayer rises softly

from someone’s lips:

Kyrie eleison Christe eleison

may God be with all

who travel alone tonight.

47

Early Morning

The cross-channel ferry is passing Howth

on its way to open spaces

but at Bullock Harbour the only stir

is a man tentative in rubber boots

descending steps to join a youth

who whips an outboard engine to life.

A dog barks encouragement from the wharf

as the boat departs on a placid sea.

In its wake the remaining boats toss

as if restless at having no one to power them

image of a dispirited crowd

longing for someone to set them free.

48

Tuesday 8th June 2004

Venus crossing the path of the Sun

a dot mirrored on a TV screen

meant no more than the News or Morse

until Mary came - she who lives

poetry rather than write it down.

Mary raced from her office desk to watch

history on a monitor on Sandymount Strand

courtesy of Dublin Sidewalk Astrologers.

‘This wonder, it dawned on me,

would not happen again for two hundred

years. And I wanted to burst into tears.

Venus is tiny, the same size

as the planet we live on. If Venus

looks like an ant creeping across the face

of the Sun, what does that make us?

Less than little worker ants who rush

to finish one job so that we can start

another, while astral beings pursue

their charted course. Regardless.’

Yes Mary you’re right…

go on looking at the stars.

For Mary O’Neill.

49

The Hedge

The escalonia hedge is being clipped

even as red blooms begin rejoicing.

It was swallowing the grass plot it surrounded

and obstructing neighbours’ views of - something.

Pruning may be needed when living things

outstrip set limits of aggrandisement

but I walk from the pain of gaiety disrupted

to watch finches fuss around a feeding table.

50

Mission Sunday

In old age little is left

but selfish tears

and a longing to be nobler

than we realise we are.

Today I went to the short pier

where weather-walloped trawlers

taking Sunday rest reminded

me of many things. Gulls

grey and dusky white

and flocks of excited

flutterers looked the same

as birds did more than sixty years

ago, and strollers much the same

including a pair of mites who asked

my name as if it mattered.

Rows of matchstick masts

looked no different than those

that invited to venture on the seas

boys like me whose sporting world

was ruled to be the tennis club

tucked away in safe green havens.

How little I have learned

and so much unexplored.

Perhaps a generous impulse

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can be indulged on Mission

Sunday even in a time

when mission stands in need

of being re-defined.

52

Transit

In sixteen hundred and thirty-nine

Jeremiah Horrocks in the Lancashire village

of Much Hoole made the first observation

of a curious black spot, Venus,

crossing the Sun (as Kepler foretold)

and died two years later aged twenty-two.

But was not more wonder crammed

in that life than in many prolonged?

He reported he left his telescope

a short while to tend to higher duties.

Who are we to make rapid judgments

about time?

53

Walking the Strand

An anniversary reminder

made me search for you.

They told me you were out

walking the strand with your dog

- and your acid-sweet memories?

I followed and missed you

yet you made me take a walk

along Sandycove promenade

saluting sentinel herons

on their seaweeded rocks

transmitting messages

of stark endurance.

I imagined you come running

towards me with your collie

but had to settle for James Joyce

starting his journey to eternal fame

from his tower in Sandycove

to his rock at Sandymount

where he listened for the bell

of the Star of the Sea benediction.

For Carmel in February 2005

54

For Sheila Calling with the Poems of

Milosz

I was watching when you came

the millions continuing to flock

to be able to say they filed

past the body of a famous

Pope they’ll style the Great.

Poor man he selected a public

disintegration

no less total than awaits all

who stretch to touch his bier.

We’ll take courage from these poems

of one who witnessed with Wotjyla

the scarlet doom of Warsaw

and escaped to mourn and sing.

What has he left a generation

that wonders if earth’s hymn

may be poisoned and, untimely,

end?

But neither great-hearted spirit

has chosen to leave us orphaned

of hope.

Czeslaw Milosz received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. He died in 2004 A.D. Karl Wotjyla became Pope John Paul 11 and died in June 2005 A.D.

55

For Csezlaw Milosz

You crossed the long divide

between poetry and philosophy.

What is poetry you asked which does not

save nations or people?

Poetry alone cannot save;

does that detract from value?

You were right about books remaining

on the shelves even after burnings.

I hope you were right in thinking

they will always be on the shelves.

Their spirit at least should survive

if only on the Internet

just as rains will continue to fall

as long as humans keep pulling back

from the final act of destruction

of their own environment.

56

Running out of Witches

Have you ever known the weirdest thoughts

and for a while believed them natural?

Pause if you’re thinking of saying yes

for the Inquisition is alive and well

flourishing somewhere near you.

Some people are by vocation

thought police. They search for targets.

Close to you a pyre is being prepared

for paedophiles, a team recruited

to tend it who must find victims

to cast into the fire. It would be wise

not to appear friendly towards children –

nor towards adults who may have latent

unorthodox dispositions and like the rest

of humanity struggle with their complexities.

And remember - should the fire start dying

new categories of victim must be found

to keep it blazing. Theologians

may come in handy…but not to worry,

thought police are very inventive people.

57

Lighthouse Blinking

The Kish lighthouse is blinking

from the far side of the bay

as if warning sea lovers

there are no trees to hug

beside this salted water.

We know now a serene bay

can turn into a sea wave

that destroys its devotees.

Practical evangelists work

to wring good news from disaster

but we must love not trust creation

remembering with the apologist

our hearts won’t finally rest

until they rest in their creator -

a hard thought for young adventurers

still longing to ride breakers.

January 2005. For all who have died in recent catastrophes

58

Night Prayer

Lord of creation

for fear our angels forget

let us recount our good deeds

to make merciful judgment

more merciful. Recital

of our sins can be left

to others. We ask you

be merciful, Lord,

as in too rare better days

we tried to be gentle

to the tedious and the troubled.

59

Some Thoughts for Rock Fans

Your compassion is sincere

and lasts throughout your rain-soaked Glastonburies.

We’re all impressed

when Geldof shouts at powerful cabinets.

If the bullying tone

grows tiresome we can see that his statistics

are beyond dispute.

Bono may be careless to whom he gives

his Stetson but seems

to know that yelling makes targets

duck out of sight.

The stars’ attentions merit praise but

a truth less palatable

is that less visible politicians are those who’ll count

in shaping policies

to make poverty history when shows are ended

and wristbands perishing.

60

Greeting Old Friends

Contracted within two rooms

life can proceed happily

sea sounds close at hand

and shouts of playing children.

Yet something feels ignoble

about flickering rather than blasting

out. Not the way a youth

might envisage the culmination

who saw himself expending all

for love. No grand gesture

can be demanded now, I think.

I had a friend who elected

to espouse declining causes –

a football club going down

a language heading for extinction

the thoughts of forgotten philosophers.

He died early of a heart attack. To me

it seemed he’d spent himself nobly

not lingering to see whether chosen

flames spluttered or flared at the end.

No matter. Breathing at any stage

is precious. I wish you whose choices

coincided with mine many years ago

some persistence of young élan

until we’re ready to explore new life.

61

The End is Consolation

In these amber dwindling days

the urge remains to console.

Always people seeking consolation

floated within my orbit.

Not those seeking truth

not those seeking a personal

love they did not expect of me –

and if they did I failed to notice

in time. Souls surrounded me

who’d lost truth and love

everything but hope. They hoped

for someone to listen to tales

of loss. Perhaps I was better then

at listening. I still can’t say

what love is, and truth dangles

high above comprehension.

But I know such things are there

and arms reach out from the wood

and a voice says, Rest and learn

to receive my consolation.

62

Wings White on Black

In June the month of boundless love

John’s border at Carraig na Greine

shines with alyssum, marigolds,

lupins looking down on primulas,

and perfumed stock. A butterfly

orange fringed, wings white on black,

alights. The gift makes us long

to linger. Should we be rushing

to save rare species from death?

But who has energy to love the world

so perfectly? Rock stars

who have their millions made

and ask: What else to do?

Maybe the world will listen again

to them in their wisening maturity.

For Sean McDonagh SSC, author of THE DEATH OF LIFE, also Bono, Geldof and everyone trying to avert catastrophes

63

September Sun

In heavy weeks of humidity

lethargy ruled and mechanical

tasks made us cease to notice

things. Today an autumn breeze

draws me to watch a bee sucking

the hearts of late marigolds

whose golden orange lights the shade

of a crimson fuchsia. For a moment

it becomes my fuchsia - until a drone

murmurs that nothing can belong

to any creature breathing an allotted

time and space. Ownership, if not

an illusion, belongs on heights

impossible to scale or scan.

For the Bayleaf team

64

Vocation

There was an era when

people had Vocations -

yes, with a capital V;

ready to die for Empire,

Faith or Working Class -

Tom Kettle, I think,

almost certainly managed to die for all three.

All that was pre-nuclear,

pre-Vatican Council Two,

pre-unisex, pre-telly –

well, anyway, before everyone

got educated enough to know

everyone is equally noble

- that is, of course, potentially.

And a good thing, too,

cheers my egalitarian soul;

now everyone has a vocation.

Yes, and no one is so

presumptuous as to suppose

hers matters more than his –

let’s shun, at all costs, that temptation.

65

Now people who eschew

the absoluteness of Vocation

have discovered Community.

They run meetings about meetings

so that no one need be alone

and are ready to die to make everyone

keep meeting everyone else continually.

Oh, you’re never satisfied,

groans my egalitarian soul;

a little loss must be borne.

True. I did not say

things in the past were better

but- great goals conflict.

And that, I think, is what I really mourn.

66

Finding The Healer

On reading my poems a friend said

‘I never realised before; there’s a note

of melancholy running through what you write’.

That saddened me. I’d wanted always

to help people laugh, make people happy.

But few things in life turned out

a laughing matter. Even comedians

seemed to jest through hidden sorrows.

And I was helpless, unable to do more

than bandage wounds or add more pain.

Yes, a source of easement could be found

but even there was terrifying pain - until

I accepted I was not born to be The Healer.

67

A Bardic Nurture

Poets shaped the contours of my life.

Shakespeare proclaimed and never went away.

With Omar Khayam, Keats, the Golden Treasury

I dallied a while in melancholy youth

before breaking into solid Chesterton,

Bernanos, Mauriac, Green, witty Waugh,

wringing from the muddle a vocation

that mingled moods of Gerard Manley Hopkins

with T. S. Eliot’s nostalgic wasteland

succumbing at length to Yeatsian complexity

while finding relief in the measured tones of Hardy,

the cubby-hole endeavours of Emily Dickinson,

and Kavanagh’s native florae and simple wisdom.

Age brought discovery in Anna Akhmatova,

Milosz, and the voices of a multitude

of scribblers like the voice that nagged within me.

The best, Browning might add, is yet to be.

68

Welcoming Sparrows

Not so much an epiphany as a restoration

the bramble bush burned as I was passing

a-quiver and a-twitter with a gladness of sparrows.

For timeless moments I waited realising

how rare the common sparrow had become.

Reluctant to rejoice alone in this appearance

I longed to tell someone but was unsure

how many might simply think ‘gone off his rocker’

so resolved to tell friends who might read verses

that reverence the joys as well as the heartbreaks

of a world the human mind can’t understand.

For Maeve and Ailish

69

Remembrance

‘We’re all here for the long haul’

was her greeting in the common room.

We never talked much after that

but sat in what might be called

companionable silence save for

my sense we were never alone.

Once I asked about her former life.

‘My husband, a wonderful man,

liked to write poetry in Irish’

she said, and the gates to speech

swung open. Other residents arrived

and quietly she smiled at them.

Now she’s gone, I’m glad that once

just once I broke our silence.

70

The Man Who Believed the Newspaper

A friend of mine believed everything

he read in his daily newspaper.

Does that sound impossibly naïve?

Well, have you heard of Marie Antoinette?

Full marks! The young Queen of France

who said when bread was in short supply

‘Then let the poor eat cake’, for which

she was, justifiably, decapitated.

But who said she said it? The gutter press

in order to sell papers and topple

a throne. Their invention became history.

My friend bought a Sunday newspaper

on Saturday, which made him a prophet

of sorts who knew all that would happen

before it happened. He always purchased

the same daily, but one day bought

a different paper and sustained

a mini-stroke on finding a contradictory

account of who caused economic chaos.

What finished him was a practical

joke when he read his obituary

in his morning paper and believed

himself to be dead. He stares

all day at a Gauguin print on the wall

and has never again read a newspaper.

71

Was it a Moorhen?

Was it a moorhen

or some other water bird

we watched as it crossed the pond

that sunny day in Winchester?

My memory is fading, but this I do

remember: The moorhen didn’t matter!

It was you who mattered, Betsy,

it was you.

72

A Sort of Sharing

What have we in common

we who pay our annual pittance

to a poetry broadsheet?

Some write on tabletops

some on computer screens

some on steering wheels

locked in traffic jams.

All want someone to read

what they have wrenched

from their subconscious

someone to share feelings

to approve or to respond

to say, ‘You’re not alone’.

So what have we in common?

The readiness I think

to reflect and comment

on the way things are

raising them above

the brittle ground we trample.

73

Memorial Letter for Bishop Des It seems to me I should write something

to honour and lament your going

since you insisted that I was a poet

and what are poets for if not to celebrate

what matters in life? And you mattered

even as our encircling ocean mattered

(all right, I know, the sea’s for swimming in

but you should see the creamy froth of it today);

you mattered to me in adolescent dawn

and later we were to worry about the same

social evils and plan a brighter future

‘til younger minds took over the process

of benevolent diagnosis, still slow

to grasp the human mind cannot encompass

the range of all may happen. My prayers,

even as I, follow you into the unknown –

more or less unknown, you must admit;

but did we not petition the Lord to give light

to all who live in the darkness of death’s shadow?

February 2006

74

A Sociologist Looks Back

Seasons change years plod on

problems remain much the same

but they’re all gone, those quiet elderly

whose lives we scanned thirty years back

who lived alone rarely felt lonely

would have liked improved washing facilities

appreciated someone keeping

a discreet watch merely to ensure

they would not disappear from view.

How moderate now seems their desires!

Gone or grown the teenagers we studied

who drifted on seafront and city streets

and to the horror of kindly hearts

shelved all worry of tomorrow

by needling poison into their arms.

That generation would benefit little

from our arguments and interpretations.

How intangible now seem their desires.

And where have the committees gone?

Those assortments of expert volunteers –

young civil servants feeding computers

tobacco company sponsors and academics

and a Jesuit slapping mud spattered boots

on top of a polished boardroom table

75

while a whispering pensioner declared himself

Representative of the Common People.

Did researchers and respondents share a longing

to be noticed in a crazily unbalanced world?

76

January Morning

Quiet and grey the little harbour at low tide

shelters three boats only, the rest being moored above it.

Small blackbeaked seabirds pick

with long orange beaks at the edging mud

while sharp-eyed gulls glide slowly in the shallows.

This privilege, this misted peace I share

with sentinel gannets perched on lofty rocks.

Just being, we stay still. At last I stroll

to a recently painted seat. On the bench

lies a bouquet of wilting roses. A card

dated Christmas says, Dear Jim my thoughts

are with you always. And I think of many gone

with whom I choose to share this morning

somehow blessed, an unearned astonishing gift.

77

Near Thing on Lesley Avenue

As I crossed a pathless road

to admire primroses on a wall

a gliding car skimmed my ankles

leaving me indignant. The image

somehow rose of a death on screen –

a boy soldier raising his head

above a trench to stroke a butterfly.

How fair a death mine too

might have seemed, a final effort

to caress beauty… My angel snapped,

Rubbish, he’d have left you lying

mangled but not dead. How aesthetic

that would be! You’ve little enough

time to come; why rush it?

N.B. This poem is dedicated to the residents of the Sue Ryder complex, Dalkey. In the interests of accuracy, it should be noted that there is no Lesley Avenue in Dalkey. Along one side of a street that may sound like it, however, runs a very narrow footpath, so narrow that pedestrians, and more especially joggers, need to take care not to fall off it.

78

Holy Thursday 5.30 a.m.

Without moving from an armchair I had witnessed

an arcing goal from the foot of Mark Viduka

read a FURROW article by a woman catechist

and talked with several friends over airwaves.

But forgive me Lord for beginning to grow wise

only in dying flashes of the night.

Midnight wisdom, if worth anything, won’t reach

those it might have nourished in the past

but comes from surprising sources

television Samuel Beckett sporting stars

whose dedication and conjured grace amazes.

Sometimes I waken crying ‘That is it!’

and in the morning open a gleaming page

and wonder what it was I wanted to tell.

At the root is this: I’ve seen my younger self

lit in more cruel yet compassionate light

than any shone on maelstroms of activity

and have realised such music as U2’s

has more to tell a mysterious new generation.

79

At Sandycove

Retirement is like beginning again

engendering a restless yearning

that resembles the aspirations of youth

but sadly lacks its burning

intensity. Now comes a periodic

peace whose source is knowing

targets must be made to adapt

to a need for upstream rowing.

In the cove a mother fills a plastic

bucket with sand for her child

and I am grateful for the chance to doze

and observe such sights, filed

for further reflection on love

and what it might be composed of.

80

No Lasting City Grieving I wrote poems

to say what never could

be said and it remained

unsaid. Half-empty pages

laughed at one who'd learned

why Beckett wrote a play

without words.

But is the tragedy of a poem

that snatches from its author

the decision it must stop

anything like the sorrow

of mortals born to be unheard?

81

Children’s Corner

To a Grandnephew Poetically Disposed Dear nephew, you’ve received a gift

that scarcely dares to say it’s there

and that I who share it cannot name

for fear it might in dudgeon flee.

What matters is to cherish it

for life, never overrating

its value, for remember this:

you’ll hardly make a living from it

and may have to suffer to retain it,

accepting it must coexist

with whatever else you’re called to do.

So boo-hoo-hoo this poem’s meant

to give you a few thoughts to chew.

One extra line will make fourteen –

almost a sonnet? Stop!

82

A Christmas Story

That Santa Claus is very old

Is something we have all been told.

Born over a thousand years ago

In Turkey, where there is no snow

All kinds of weather he’ll endure

Children’s happiness to secure.

Christened Nicholas, when very young

His parents died and he was brung

Up by monks. Skilful scanners

Of character, they taught him manners

And Christian virtues. He became

Bishop of Myra. He assumed the name

Santa Claus, his kindly acts

Preserved in legend; these are the facts.

Italian merchants brought Santa’s bones

To a shrine in Bari. There were no phones

So three ships came with banners flying

With bands and heralds loudly crying

That here the Saint’s remains would stay

And inviting people to cheer and pray.

A tale they told of a destitute lord

Whose daughters, three, were never wooed

Because local men could not see how

Their dad could manage a decent dow-ry.

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But Nicholas had inherited wealth

That enabled him to do good by stealth.

Through the window a bag of gold

Rescued Daughter One from spinsterhood

And he threw in another for Daughter Two.

The father wondered who would do

Such a generous deed. He boarded up

The window. Late he supped

To catch the stranger off his guard.

But no fool Santa – clever he

Climbed the roof and for Daughter Three

Threw gold down the chimney chuckling ‘Hee

hee hee’. Coins filled the sock

Where it hung drying - a lovely shock!

With money about the suitors tarried

And all three girls got happily married.

Santa had found the ideal way

To offer gifts. He decided to stay

On earth forever. Angels complained,

Saying, This mortal must be restrained,

But the Lord God said, It seems to us

To interfere would be ridiculous.

If we stop him now, children might

Make blasphemous protest in our sight.

So saints and angels bowed their heads

Leaving Santa with his elves and sleds

84

To roam the world and drop his toys

Down chimneys for little girls and boys

Reminding them that once they grew

They could be kind and generous too.