How the Irish became the most knowledgeable race on earth

  The Salmon in the Spring, the Hazel and the Hermit

Into an open gob the hazelnuts fell,

so that over the years the salmon grew

into a colossus.

A day came when one fell and devoured

the very instant of  dimpling the surface,

it caused the salmon to spew from its intestines

the knowledge of a thousand years

that cascaded downhill

over the shilling bright stones,

through the ignorant meadows to the lake,

where it became part of the ever-turning

cycle of life, in water, weed and silt.

A hermit, who lived by the lake,

dousing his face, drank some of this potion

and was instantly replete.

In time a hazel took root in his belly

and he convulsed

so that the stones unearthed by his flailing feet

filled the lake

and sent its waters flooding out

onto to the plain where the people lived;

so they, too, in their turn, drank;

and by this means knowledge and poetry spread

from the time that was before

to the times now and those yet to come

And  that, dear frends, is how the Irish became

the wisest, savviest race on earth.

Karst Man

 

When I tell you, the man who lives on those hills is made

of the same karst he stands on,

that butts through the thin cover of his fields;

that he and his forefathers, back to neolithic times, 

used to construct the walls, their net on the landscape; 

it’s not a poetic conceit.

I have seen him standing in spring-limpid sunlight,

his legs and arms a trellis for briar and blackthorn;

a perch for robin, chaffinch and stonechat;

I tell you, it was the place that coded his DNA; 

to the spring water of his eyes, gently sloping fields of his voice,

subterranean streams of  his belonging. 

It was the snow

 

that brought me back,

its peace and space;

refinding myself

in its absence of clutter.

With each new fall

more deeply cleansed;

the world simplified,

a fresh start.

A Book from Stone

 

Well, not really. But sometimes it feels that way.

I keep the blog to amass poems. Publishing online keeps me at it; knowing that there are readers out there gives me impetus. 

There comes a point when I have to decide there's enough to carve out a collection; I've been deferring; editing is a chore and there is a serious amount of editing to be done to re-shape these poems for a book publication. But now is the time. I have about six years of material, poems that have been produced like diary entries. I will disregard about 80% of them and spend, perhaps a year, maybe more, getting the rest into a shape that I am happy to have representing me. Somehow a book seems to demand a level of care that the blog doesn't; I  hope that's isn't an insult to regular readers.

I mention it because, though I do post newer drafts of poems on the blog, there'll be more now as I rework the pieces. I don't tend to get feedack but feel free if you feel the urge; for now, though, I have to address this chunk of stone.

 

Laid Out

 

It’s often the hands

locked and clawed

that snag the eyes.

Now yours,

so recently warm,

bound in rosary beads;

already a statue’s.

Bog

 

Bog

Sinking into the soft mire, spagnum sponge;

ooze rising inches above my feet: beer brown,

freezing cold. I take a handful and squeeze;

water, so much water drains through my fingers;

I slap away the fresh vegetation; hold my hands

to my nose, am filled with the smell of fertile earth.

Heathers, mosses, sedge and bog cotton;

a wilderness, once a lake, its margins still visible:

green fields and farm houses away in the distance:

Here, in the realm of insects, plants that devour them,

sundews and butterworts, their killer genes expressed

in the mucillage, tentacles, in the traps of their leaves.

And down, down beneath my feet, rich black turf:

countless years of heat, insulation: walls and roofing;

from bountiful earth fuel from the growth of millennia.

There too, the preserved remains of the past: old roads,

wooden tracks, submerged walls, jewelery, weapons, tools;

bodies wearing facial expressions that have defied time.