Over the Boundaries Read online

  Distances

  There’s a land out west

  To which I was wed,

  A land in the setting sun

  Where the sun never sets,

  The light on the dancing trees on the hill

  Strong as the wind that blows through my dreams

  And endless days lifted aloft

  On strong arms that now lie still —

  My life as the sea, ebbing and flowing,

  Ebbing and flowing with the swell.

  Wonder

  The kind of day that sets me back in childhood reverie -

  Familiar west wind blowing in bare trees

  Under a grey and water-laden sky,

  Man and beast thrown together

  In this landscape nothingness.

  Wonder if we are facing west or east,

  The ones we loved all the while,

  The ones we are leaving still,

  Or a new love somewhere

  That opens up new skies

  Filling our days, these last times, with definite light.

  Think the sum of the missing parts, miraculously,

  To make up a whole in the God-given scheme of things.

  Riverman

  Nature has reclaimed the earth,

  Called it back to herself

  In floods and flowing rivulets.

  We picked our steps

  Between the water and the wet hedge,

  The sun, for days now, hidden from view

  In a sea of cloud and heavy mist.

  Encapsulated as a dewdrop on a leaf,

  Senses sunk in the vaporous smell of the sodden earth

  And held fast like children to her bosom,

  We are the free ones soon to be liberated,

  The expectant ones, the exultant.

  Transcend

  Be true to the day that rises,

  Silently like any other,

  Inexorably like all the rest

  In fulfilment of its own plan.

  The day that, like all the others,

  Carries us forward in its bosom,

  Touched as we still are by the tears and fears,

  The childhood scrapes and falls,

  The half-loves in the half-light,

  By chimeric dreams you and I enthralled.

  And called, some of us above our years,

  Above the joys, above the tears,

  In the sun that rises again anew

  Complete with promises of life,

  O miracle of miracles, in this body of clay

  That fit and lift and stretch and bend —

  like glass in the hands of the blower

  Or dough, the breadmaker —

  We are jewels called forth to shine,

  Transcend, we are the new Jerusalem.

  Watch-Light

  Who keeps watch from one unremitting day to the next,

  Not breaking the continuity therein.

  Swept to higher ground,

  Conscious decision made to come down -

  As clouds rolling in from the south that, somehow we

  know,

  Will not infringe greatly upon the high -

  This parallel truth dawning, this watch-light,

  Mystical reckoning of man-nature-God

  Where silence speaks far, far louder than words.

  The Lotus-Eaters

  The burning of the weeds continues,

  Night and day, all summer long.

  Weeds you can’t tell by name

  But whose habit is familiar.

  The one of weak root that entwines itself

  Round rosemary and blackcurrant bush,

  Growing as it goes until it sits victorious

  Like a crown atop its host.

  The fire burns all summer long,

  Red glow aided by used timber,

  Overgrown bush and spreading tree,

  The remains of the day.

  Not yet the disused and spent weaponry

  Of the redundant warrior.

  We have moved into the still realm of the ITCZ,

  Intertropical convergence zone where trade winds,

  North and south, cease to blow —

  Not a twig or leaf moves and the air

  Oozes droplets of misty water vapour

  That caress our cheeks and weary brow.

  Our eyes scan a sea where no warships roll,

  Look out over the immeasurable land

  Where no one buys or sells anymore

  And the booty is handed out in rich measure

  And all are satisfied to the core —

  Young and old alike enthralled

  By the righteous demands of love

  And truth and justice, and moved, moreover,

  By the ineffable beauty and majesty of our warrior Lord.

  Let Everyone on Earth

  The Lord is in his holy Temple; let everyone on earth

  be silent in his presence.

  Habakkuk 2:20

  Silence of the Good Friday hours.

  Silence of the refectory hall.

  Silence of the Judaean wilderness

  Where he fasted the lonely forty nights and days.

  Silence of the bereaved,

  Of the long walk back to the crowd,

  The slow walk back to happiness.

  Silence of the languid autumn nights

  As, overcome, nature begins her descent again

  Into the bosom of the earth.

  They came, sporadically at first,

  Then continuously in a stream

  As you gave us to drink from full and holy cisterns.

  Thoughts on a Peruvian Prayer

  ‘Poetry is mine,’ I heard a voice say, ‘and the body of

  believers.’

  Time to pick up the pen again then and write, I thought,

  As Cisneros did or Gerardo Diego —

  Versos Divinos, Angeles de Compostela

  Amor Solo, or in some other way,

  Thus ending the silence, growth of the great barrier-reef,

  Crust of coral rock, thoughts hardened to an anomalous

  mass

  And not sifted or free as the bright fish that swim

  In the cerulean blue of sky below, above and beyond.

  The Spirit Is All I Need

  For Brendan Kennelly

  I stood in defiance of your call —

  Your smile, the sun on dancing leaves,

  Mine, a beam of light pure as milkwood

  That absorbed you in its embrace.

  I must fight, I thought, and not risk defeat;

  With cunning I viewed the skilled warrior

  And did not know if he would receive

  As friend or foe the child lost to love’s face.

  Pathways

  My chest is become a map,

  Veinous ways a web of paths

  You walk across.

  Your steps fall, heavy as stone,

  Down some obscure lane

  On Dame, d’Olier Street;

  Fall silenced at the cross Of redeemed, beleaguered love

  I am stretched upon.

  The Dogs of War

  The dogs of war are at my window,

  Snarling jaws circling for the kill.

  To go outside now would be certain suicide,

  I sit, heart pounding, waiting for daylight to come.

  Was it that I was my father’s favourite child,

  Even the Father’s prodigal son

  Or just that, having loved and lost,

  I had finally loved and won?

  Goodbye Old Star

  Fairy light of star

  In a winter twilight sky.

  Haze on the forest slope,

  Houses sunk in evergreen
groves,

  Smell of silage and cattle-fodder fills the air

  With a sweet musk perfume.

  Emerging from behind a cloud,

  Venus breaks her moorings

  And heads for her appointed zenith

  Way out over the western horizon.

  Earth lifts up her heavy sighing

  To the tops of barren, ivy-clad trees,

  An old soldier’s journey draws to a close —

  Trees would fly free in the heavens

  Ere soul kissed soul again

  In freedom’s sweet embrace.

  An Exile’s Dream

  If you love me as much as I loved my dog

  When she lay bleeding to death

  And I hugged and caressed her

  And she miraculously survived, it’s alright.

  As I loved the hounded terrorist sitting in his den

  On his final fling of freedom,

  Media and mediators turned cold,

  Chilled by his numbing deeds —

  Only he and I saw the hidden escape route,

  A tunnel through the barned hay,

  And we crawled our way suffocatingly to the light,

  It’s alright. Or, as when, surfacing finally from sleep,

  The man reclining on raised ground with his friends

  And tents pitched high in the heavens above,

  Viewing it all from afar and me with such an intenseness

  of love,

  It’s alright, Lord, it’s alright.

  Unwanted Legacy

  For Paul Higgins

  The kids didn’t want teaching, mama,

  So we left them alone.

  They were hungry, just as we were,

  Only nobody came to our rescue back then.

  Just like now ’cause when we tried to give them the word,

  You came along with your cohort of rampaging friends,

  Shouting, “Look, there he is, stop him,” and ye snatched

  The food right out of their mouths, sending us away.

  The seed that would have grown inside them,

  Life-giving, fruit-bearing.

  Instead we have disease and destruction, sickness and

  decay.

  “The education system only serves Satan,” I heard the

  Spirit say.

  Words at Dusk

  There is nothing in my life,

  No love in my heart, I have not surrendered.

  Empty though not empty-handed,

  I await the coming;

  Give back as I am given

  Loved ones I cannot reach, yet carry still,

  A teenage girl’s light prayer,

  A man’s mid-life frustrations — these I let fall

  And, shot on our screen, a young wife’s tearful farewell

  To her bullet-ridden husband dying on the floor…

  And, from yesterday, some strange love I hand over

  But keeps coming back again and again

  And stronger still as the sun bringing yet another spring.

  Lambs drop in the field, covered in ewe’s blood,

  A whisper of a prayer falls from my lips

  As I stand at dusk by the river in flood:

  O bring this love again and come, Lord Jesus, come.

  The Cost

  We came downstairs, out into the afternoon heat

  And resumed working on the summer beds,

  Digging carnations out of the dry, parched earth.

  We made it,’ you said non-comittedly as you came

  And sat beside me on a rocky ledge,

  ‘I’m glad we’ve come this far,’ I said.

  Raised up on this, our platform of faith,

  We looked out across a plateau

  On horizons yet to be reached.

  Looked down on the climb successfully negotiated thus

  far—

  Though we had lost a little something along the way,

  perhaps,

  What matter, no victory is won at no cost in any war.

  From the Garden

  They took the quarry from the stone

  And the water from the mill;

  They placed a no-go sign outside your door,

  The place of your still moving will.

  They took the meadow from the long grass,

  The valley and the hill;

  The white-curved moon they thieved from the sky

  And a trillion stars harnessed for war.

  O war of wars! What giant step

  Slowly and stealthily taken

  From small turning back

  Of one man, woman, in the garden.

  Showdown

  Night and the seasons wrap themselves

  Round us as winter draws in.

  I welcome the shortening day, the departing sun -

  It cannot rob me of what I do not have

  And of what I long, eternally, to hold.

  I am in love with this darkness,

  My life’s course not far from run.

  All that’s left to do is wait -

  Wait by the deep-girthed beech

  Prematurely devoid of its leaves,

  Dank smell of decaying wood in the undergrowth

  Drawing out the senses in narcosis-inducing ease,

  With the animals that come and go -

  The fast growing kittens in the fruit bushes,

  Dogs lying languidly by the open door,

  The two flighty fillies settling into their stabling routine,

  Knowing they will be cared for as winter slowly

  approaches

  And nature shuts down on us once more.

  Over the Boundaries

  We met by the high walls,

  This time as friends;

  You were taking the rubbish out to burn —

  Bits of broken timber gathered in a pile

  In the shade of sycamore and tall oak.

  I observed your efforts, standing

  At the borders of my own lot.

  “You don’t think of me now,” you said lightly

  As I approached, causing me to protest.

  “I follow your progress all the time,” I said.

  The sound of your fast beating heart —

  Result of strain, struggling with the fiery cohorts —

  As we walked arm in arm, drew me on.

  We walked long, out over the boundaries

  Of our lives, over time present and past,

  Seeking new ground, leaving old faces behind,

  The cynicism and mistrust,

  Two unsung heroes from some Greek tragedy

  Or Hansel and Gretel lost in the deep woods.

  Let the Cricket Sing

  Creamery carts, their milk-tankards full,

  Harness jingling as iron hooves met stone,

  Their coming and going, as we rose and sank in sleep

  The glorious summer mornings long, echoed our own.

  I stood, a timid figure, on the road

  Waiting for his familiar form to appear

  And ran to meet him when it did,

  I was only three or four.

  We drew water from the well,

  Brought the turf up from the rick.

  Dreaming up monsters in the dark,

  We fought our fears out loud.

  A summer’s evening upstairs in bed, truth dawned,

  I cried and would not stop, I have a pain in my tummy,’

  Was all I said when she brought me down and asked,

  when,

  ‘You are going to die and Daddy too,’ was all that was in

  my heart.

  When the Circus Came to Town

  I must have been only five or six —

  It was before we moved from the old school up to the

  new,

  The one with flower-gardens and concrete paths.

  We sat then on long, hard, wooden benches

  And suffered the daily onslaught of teachers’ censorious

  re
marks

  While they, the circus folk, basked in open sunshine,

  No roof over their heads but a canvas dome,

  Moveable caravans for a home. We envied them so,

  Endless days and nights on the merry-go-round,

  Juggling balls, standing upside down on their heads,

  Leaping through hoops on white, crested-neck ponies,

  Walking across open spaces, through obstacles of fire.

  They were gods in our eyes, exempt from all laws

  And if we could have gone with them when they pulled

  up pegs

  And broke camp, we would. Dreams of being tight-rope

  walkers

  And acrobats — we made do with lessons from Joy instead

  As she played with us briefly in the schoolyard

  Before moving on, time out from skipping and hopscotch,

  Hurling ourselves at her on instruction

  While she caught us up firmly astride her hips.

  When the circus came to town, to our village,

  And set up shop in Bill Reidy’s field next door,

  We passed by their tents, Josie and myself,

  As often as we could each day,

  Heads filled with romance,

  After the cold and rain of winter,

  Our young lives temporarily rescued

  From the monotonous drabness of our ways.

  Vignettes

  The river flows past manor walls

  Steadily on its course past woodland gardens

  Where oak and silver birch and rhododendron held sway

  And we walked in dappled shade amid riotous scent

  On to the wild wood beyond.

  Past the well-kept lawns and rose-beds it flowed,

  The french windows, piano notes drifting through,

  Now lost on the wind.

  That old colonial post turned emancipation house

  Where suffragette-in-arms ran guns with her friends.

  Where choir and choral group raised orchestrated voices

  To the tune of ’Murder in the Cathedral’ and The

  Sheperd’s Farewell’.

  The shouting from the playing fields still haunts,

  Tennis-courts open to estuary breezes

  That blew westerly up the mouth of the wide river