A summer at Maynooth
for V
Time passed, like the mill wheel turning on slow water:
as each long summer afternoon,
we strolled along the banks of the Grand Canal,
were we braved our first, deliberate kiss,
and saw, on the grape-green waters,
our first swans, eloquently, gracefully float by
on a stream of the imagination
that knows no words, no sounds. Pure joy.
Afraid
One day, Brendan, you will ask me,
'Why did you write about personal themes
and not the troubles raging around you?
Were you afraid da?' And I will reply,
'Yes, son, I was. I was afraid my poems
would incite men to kill. Afraid my words
would not heal. And most of all son, afraid
I would not be alive to answer your questions.
Curb stones
I
Painted on curbs
on either end
of the main street
our tribal marks
clearly define
territory.
Up the far end
red, white and blue.
Up the other
green white and gold.
Separating
the borders,
the common ground -
business and craic,
pints at The Pot,
cream tea at Toffs.
… …
'We're proud to show
pride in our flag!'
No Surrender!
Our day will come!
… …
'If they'd only
spend as much time
decorating
their own houses.'
II
Pissed on puked on
at closing time
spat on shat on
on market day
tramped on stamped on
our peeling curbs
our precious flags
desecrated.
Good Friday 1998
I
All day and all
through the long night
into Good Friday,
our hearts rose,
then sunk…
as we hung
on every word
of each
coded newsflash,
like anxious parents waiting
for the surgeon to say
‘The child will be all right.'
That Thursday and Friday
Everybody held
his breathe and prayed.
II
Spring sun shone
on our backs,
snow showers
in the small hours
and bitter winds
of Belfast Lough.
The weather spoke
our hopes, our fears.
When dawn broke
rusty nails still
crucified our souls.
But by late afternoon
we rose
from the table,
speaking as one,
our quarrels
dissolving in words
a peace born.
15.4.1998
Famine
Dragging himself up
from the dirt,
his frail carcass scrapes
against bark.
Splinters pack his gut,
as he stretches out
for a worm,
an egg, a grub...
A cold wind blows.
Dislodged like a nest,
empty and brittle and dry,
he falls to the dust.
A relic of our response.
Farewell
On my return home from waving you off
at Dublin airport, I sat, head bowed
over a map of the Pacific,
tears drowning the Island
you returned home to for good.
Horizon
His horizons were always
a stone's throw away:
intimate, secure,
comforting.
At first, a thin bar
of widening light,
as the nursery door
slowly opened.
Next, a high wall
and a tall fence
around the house,
kept Atlantic gales
and wild dogs at bay.
Now, were drumlins
huddle together,
he has built himself,
out of shyness,
a house among trees.
Mo ghra thu*
To Eileen Keenan.
'I nearly said I love you.'
The sheer sadness of holding back,
of putting off
until the next time,
and then there is no time, scares me.
Mmm...Mmm…Mmm
Great. 'Mummy-'
Mmm…Mmmmm…Mummy…
Go on your doing well.
Mummy…
Powerful.
Mummy…
Good man.
Mummy…I…I
Yes?
Mummy I love…
Yes?
Mummy I love you.
Brilliant! Bloody Brilliant!
Gaelic: Mo ghra thu / I love you.
Martha
She walks with a calm importance
along the scraggy lanes seeing
with the painter's eye and hearing
with the musician's ear the land
brimming with the handprints of God.
With the reek of cow dung from her bare feet
And the wind whistling through her fire-red hair
She has no need to flirt with an imagined land.
On the road to
Tir na nOg
After Alexander Blok
Oh, if you only knew, children,
the warmth and glow of the days to come
as we follow the road to Tir na nOg.
And, if you only knew, children,
the cold and gloom of the days gone by
you'll never stray off the road to Tir na nOg.
A Recorder bird's
lament
Poets praise our musical species.
But not one will praise me.
I was born with a defect.
I have parrot in my blood.
The only songs I can sing
are the sounds I hear
from the big house below.
There, three spinsters squeal and squeak,
like demented hags demanding
to be heard, and I am forced
to broadcast their screeching racket.
St Francis of Assisi,
St Kevin of the Blackbird
I beseech you
intercede on my behalf
teach them to produce softer sounds
or better still, bless them
with the gift of knowing
when to shut their beaks.
28 OCTOBER 1996
It was one of those fierce blustery days
When strong winds vigorously, combed the trees.
Powerful weather for putting out the dog
to get rid of fleas.
Warm evenings saw Mrs McKenna,
her breasts hung over the half door
chatting away to passer-by.
Winter evenings at McKenna's
saw a back door ajar, a frisky fiddler,
stories and tunes rising
from the sweating huddle round the hearth.
And afterwards, in the small hours,
neighbours, farm hands, the parish priest
helping each other stagger home.
But all that changed with the troubles.
Uncle Jimmy
Deathday Friday 8 August 1998
When Uncle Jimmy, God rest his soul, died
at home in Armagh, we were moving house
to Suffolk. We couldn't settle that first night.
But early next morning baby Brendan
discovered the new back garden
had twice the room for tearing round.
So now he's fine.
My brother Mick and I
traveled home for the burial.
'It was a great day for a funeral.'
The sun shone on our backs and a gentle breeze
eased our climb up the graveyard hill.
All we could think or talk about was poor Jimmy …
As we stood at the grave and wept
something beckoned me forward not back
beyond Father Peter leading the prayers,
beyond Aunt Irene and Mummy crying,
beyond Kevin and Uncle Oliver
lowering Jimmy to his final rest,
to my nephews and nieces and cousins,
and Brendan playing in the near-field.
The young ones who had not been born
the last time we buried a Murphy-Keenan.
