Welcoming Felix

So, I'm a grandad. Felix arrived in February, when I started this poem; only now completing it or at least editing it further. It's all colour for the little fellow now, but seeing him in February, it really struck me how extraordinary the process of human growth and development is.

Welcoming Felix  

Well, Felix, you finally made it. How small you are, sleeping,

half-waking to a world of black and white, soon enough to be colour.

Exploring it in  your mother’s face; later the room, the house, the garden; 

all the time gathering to yourself the world within grasp.

That growth, from the cockle you are now to the man coming;

let it be flush with the eagerness to experience life’s richness,

may it ease you into the heart of happiness.

So, Felix,

with your sight still forming; may the world come, settle gently around you.

I wish you the love that will make it easy, safe passage through the days

and the humour to break the backs of any hardships you may meet.

   xxx

Cursing Death.

 

Cursing death;

the grim reaper

has slashed again

and we are bereft.

We overlooked

the kindly hand

that delivered her

from suffering.

The Discovery

 

I’d been here, a year maybe; and decided to see what was

covered by the overgrowth in a corner of the garden.

I hacked and cleared and found a small ravine

in the half-light of over-hanging trees, hazel and sally, with

a waterfall spilling down thin layers of rock, turning a corner

to a semi-circular enclosure, carpeted with anemones,

perfect for a bench.

I could see there was an old crossing-point over the stream,

a path climbing upward with a low bank running alongside.

Not far away, on the other side, the remains of an old dwelling;

barely more than a hovel. I imagine buckets carried to and fro,

clothes washed, boots sloshed clean as they headed in for the night;

the traffic of playing children, of adults driving their cattle,

of neighbours sharing their time.

There is an aura to places like holy wells, mass rocks, old laneways;

the marks of lives lived prompt visions, memories almost;

as though ghosts, pinned in by modern technology, have been

consigned to spend eternity in these haunts. Silences are held breaths;

the hills, drumlins, are billow-like behind me, it’s easy to picture

the farmers heading up to check on their sheep, dig their ridges;

meeting them, like this, is a solemn experience.

Céide Fields (Edited Version)

 I wrote this a year ago, but left itvery much under-cooked; I think this is a fuller, more  satisfying version.

Céide Fields

These walls, stone calligraphies,

almost six thousand years old,

predating Sumerian cuneiform,

built on the tablet of geologic time;

its pages stacked above the ocean,

stripes of the Céide cliffs

closed under the cover of bogland.

Peat that preserved their script,

a retelling of Neolithic life;

the walls of their fields like a net 

thrown onto the land; 

a farming community 

perched above the roaring Atlantic,

their livestock in enclosures, 

their lives lived in that lattice-work.

And now I think of Tom’s new walls,

the limestone boundaries of his fields;

how he has written his lines into this history,

albeit much further inland.

How he has added to the great patchwork,

six millennia in the making

and kept the stitch;

how glorious his walls stand.

Crashing

 

When the snow started

the flakes wandered aimlessly,

casually, slowly downward.

All drifting, passing each other;

no plans, no destination,

no rush.

And still, each carries

the unvarying symmetries of snow:

the hexagonal branching of arms:

60°, hexagonal symmetry;

mirror symmetries, radial symmetries;

crashing like rebellious rich kids.

Vanessa atalanta

 

Vanessa atalanta has an Italian ring to it,

but she flies

among the briar blossoms here in Donegal.

When I first came to this house, I found

her in every room; her wings folded above her body.

In Winter, she’d sometimes be stirring; but now ‒ never;

what did I do?

She is, herself, an airborne flower

and I am always delighted to have her, for a moment,

in my cupped hands; but in December?

On reflection, I have been removing the briars

and pulling the running ivy;

bringing the garden to heel, you might say;

there are a lot of new houses going up around here.

I think this is true

 

Without presence,

our distant friendships

are doomed

as words are cold

on slabs of stone.

Listening to Classical Guitar

There’s a telegraph wire beyond my garden,

a heavy black line drawn against the sky.

To my right it meets a pole, then heads off

in a new direction, passing behind my right shoulder.

Hanging on that line, an orange sun is contemplating a dip

in the sea; the pillar of light on the water says so;

beyond that, the hills behind Killybegs are a series

of grey shapes, shadows doused in a pink haze.

I am listening to Plinio Fernandes’ classical guitar;

each note followed by a space, that permits it to fall,

to settle a moment in my head; and then there’s the sun’s

hesitation above the water; and then I spot the pidgeon

on the telegraph wire, listening to the guitar. I notice

that he is connected to the sun, the other side of the pole;

and the sun to the sea; sea to the hills; and myself;

all, somehow, immersed in this music.

Untitled Poem

 

There is very little wisdom I can give; I’ve lived

long enough but seem to have learned little, and

looking around just now, that may be a human truth.

I am holding whatever happiness is in this moment;

my loves, dreams and wishes are blossoms now;

tomorrow: who knows! The future is a brittle vase.

Gods

 

We give our gods human shape;

they suffer our failures and weaknesses,

indulge in our desires.

And we believe ourselves god-like

with the right to dream of more,

infinitely more.

No surprise then, we meet them

on the nth storey of Babel,

staring at us; mirrors.

Drift

 

Years drift

languorous as smoke.

Those I knew

insubstantial now

as the memory

of their voices.

How we waft

on the gentle current

of time.

For Mother's Day

 Waving

 It was not the wave from the door, but,

when she’d turned out of the gate, looking back,

mother was still there with a second wave,

that, like an exchange of vows, was love

declared, over and over, with the simplest gesture.

Great milestones of her life started there;

her ever-growing steps towards independence,

all blessed with that wave, a warm pullover of love

to wear wherever the steps were going; and knowing too

that those waves were always tinged with sadness.

Faces

 

Age hides itself

until you need a new passport

or bump into a childhood friend.

Then the frantic effort

to find some familiar landmark

in that landscape:

eyes, mouth, smile;

digger life has shifted the earth

and you are lost.

Sometimes it's the voice 

you remember;

its call from the depths.

Sometimes, in the eye,

turn of a mouth, you find

the key that was lost in the grass.

And now, face to face,

with the truth of your own age;

you must smile and lie.

Carrowkeel

 

Fog, it’s the mountain’s breath.

We arrive at the first cairn,

looming out of nothing:

fog ‒ colour of limestone;

fog made into stone.

We breath it;

breath in their spirits;

mountain of fog;

we enter the cairn;

enter a womb.

Crouched inside;

in no place, no time;

stone, air, water speaking

the language we have forgotten;

we must be reborn to hear it.

On Peter's Day Out

 1.

Peter, looking across the car park

for some trace of his family home

inside the Guinness complex on Thomas Street;

finding it difficult to pinpoint exactly

where the house was, where the garden began,

where the enclosing walls were,

sees the pear tree against the office wall.

In all that development, the only trace of home,

the only greenery on the site, the solitary survivor

from the greenery of his playing days:

that pear tree.

With memories unexpectedly unrooted

and he a witness with short years ahead;

he resorts to stories

which is, eventually, the fate of all lives.

2.

At lunchtime Peter and I repair to a pub;

we sit at the counter with sandwiches and pints;

he refuses to be photographed.

At some point, I catch a view of his face in the mirror

behind the bar, between the bottles; he does not notice.

A man, home after a lifetime abroad; old now, alone,

even from his past and unwilling to view his face;

how time has run over it,

how it obliterates the past.