Bohreen

 

Bohreen

 

Bohreen*

Burgeoning spring growth,

the hedgerows of hawthorn, hazel and elder

ankle-deep in profusions

of primrose, celandine and vetch

bowing towards each other over the bohreen,

claiming the light if not the tar.

Swallows, sleek as fighter jets,

bulleting down the narrow corridor,

skimming our heads,

wheeling behind us to come again.

Bends along the way revealing curiosities:

a bed-end stopping a gap,

moss-covered walls along cow-dunged lanes,

an ivy-draped ruin, pre-famine cottage

featureless but for the fireplace,

and those potato ridges on which blight-

blackened leaves once signalled starvation

still there, grassy corrugations in destitute fields.

Cattle with chomping jaws lift their heads

to watch us pass with quizzical stares;

all around beauty crowding into our eyes

birdsong and the sounds of fields filling our ears

and yet, behind it all, even now,

there’s the held breaths of the departed.

*boreen or bohreen from the irish word ‘bóithrín’ meaning a narrow country road

Untitled

 

Your exit corridor is a snow-white Carrara;

by the time you were walking it, our goodbyes

had already echoed themselves to silence.

Your feet on that floor must have lisped,

for all your faith, you would have had questions,

but who was to answer?

Outside, we watched and listened till you stopped;

suddenly there is just the body

and soon it too is a cold marble.

What to Say

 

In memory of my mother

What to say,

as she breathes fitfully,

the last minutes of her life.

We struggle

to find the best way of saying

we love you,

be happy to be on your way

to the God of your life-long devotion,

to put love, comfort, encouragement

into our uncertain, dismayed voices;

words worthy of a lifetime

of love and care.

Her breathing weakens;

doubtful that anything

is penetrating the fog of her condition,

we must still try:

words to carry

as she steps off the ledge.

Her Fingers, Piano and Light

 

Her fingers on the piano keys:,

nails red as rose-hips, 

                                                                                   

in net of cigarette smoke filled 

with afternoon sunlight.

Notes like sequins

falling inside the canyon of childhood;

                                               

brass, silver and mahogany,

ashtrays and antimacassars,

Liszt her gold tooth, she smiles; 

the music climbs jangly from the piano,

filling the room till the walls fall and she 

dissipates in deforming contours of smoke. 

I write to catch it,

but may as well be catching steam.

City Nature

 

I am walking the canal

in the dim light of a December evening,

settling my mind to its flow.

Ghostly on winter glass, swans,

bright as lit matches, are gliding

over the oarweed of traffic lights,

towards Harold’s Cross Bridge.

Oblivious to rush-hour commotion,

and blind to their own beauty,

they pass silently along,

out-pacing me and leaving nothing,

but a set of low chevron-shaped ripples

in their wake; while above them

two lines of cars fulminate continuously

to the iodine-murky sky.