A Taste of Emptiness

I arrived in Dublin in 1973, having joined the Bank of Ireland, and was training in the Head Office in Baggot Street. Away from home, it was the first time in my life I was not answerable to someone for how I spent my time; no one questioning where I was, or who I was spending time with. Strange after all those years,it felt wrong; there seemed to be too much space; there was a hollow feeling to it.

I think that hollow is the one that sometimes bringing loneliness, gets filled with drinking. Of course, it could also be filled with golf or dancing or..or..., but pubs are so accessible and they promise company or the illusion of company.I was at a loose end and I did find it lonely.This memory has very little to do with the poem Passage, but the "space, to wander in" brought it back - a disorientated state of mind.




PASSAGE.

We were lovers;
now I'm off,
you're packed away;
you folded up small.

So with curving spine
and arms belting knees
tight under chin, I roll on;
a wheel from the accident.

Ahead there is space,
to wander in,
to kick up dust;
space where fires won't burn.