Pilgrim Verses 161-167

 161. Brigid Lily Murray 1919-2014 

 

Saving from your first job in Foley’s brewery

Until you well passed eighty

Like the prudent virgin in the tale

Like the sailor out at sea

You always trimmed the sail.

 

Always careful, always frugal,

Though generous to a fault

Kind to young and old

Except to yourself, of course

 

Sitting here in the sunshine

Of my country paradise

How many meals did you forsake

That I might enjoy this place?

 

How many things did you fail to buy

To how many things said ‘no’

That I might sit in the sunshine..

Is it too late to say thanks somehow?

 

Maybe the answer’s in sharing

What I’ve got, what you gave without caring

The bill, the cost or the price

The only solution is the giving.

 

All here because of your saving

That started in Sligo post office

Seventy years ago

Thanks Lily, thanks mum

We’ve something special to show! 

162. Au revoir dear friend 

 

No need to pray for him

He rests in peace now.

We mourn his passing

We miss that kind voice

And cheeky charm.

No words can repair

The sadness of our loss

For he’s not spirit only

But body too.

 

Released, his soul’s flown on,

Beyond the bounds of heaven and hell.

He’s way beyond our solar system now,

Beyond black holes and galaxies,

Escaped from gravity

And religion’s poor grasp

Of infinity.

 

Beyond our wildest dreams

And crazy imaginings.

He lodges in a starry room

Prepared for those who live the truth

And live the love

A mystery most extraordinary.

163. Churchtown Angelus August 2012 

 

Sitting here in the shade

Of the spreading tree

In leafy Castle Park

Car door open with windows down

A gentle breeze

Rustles the leaves

Beneath the pale blue china sky.

A warming sun

Full of August promise.

The first few leaves

Of early Irish autumn

Scurry along the pavement

Like playful schoolboys

Hurrying nowhere in particular

With carefree insouciance

And joyful innocence.

 

This magic moment

Only came to be

Through a haircut

For an aging lady

Of almost ninety-three.

Confused of days and hours

Bravely facing loss of powers

The common fate of missing

Friends who died younger

The nether coin-side,

The double-edged blessing 

Of advanced old age.

 

 

A pigeon calls

In Castle Park

In trees above

The handsome homes

And gleaming cars.

 

A man with silver hair

Cleans clubs with care.

Sounds of grass being cut

Are punctured by the Angelus bell

From the Good Shepherd church.

 

Midday suburban sounds

A sleepy sunny peace abounds

Ladies hair is cut with care

By Peter G who helps awhile

The Churchtown gals prolong their style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

164. Kate Harte (née) Morris 1920-2013 

 

Many decades to remember

As we mourned her last December

Kathe the golfer, Kate the mother

Sister, friend and life-lover.

 

A gift for friendship

Not spread wide

But true and close

Right by our side.

 

Ever ready, ever true

To lend a hand

To me and you.

 

Knitting, sewing, cooking, cleaning

Nothing ever too demeaning

Coming, going in her Mini

Driving deftly as in a Porsche.

 

Baby-sitting, reading, teaching

Around her kitchen table.

Tea in china cups

To the chime of carriage clocks.

 

To Marie’s bungalow above the bay

A modest drink at close of day

A lively G and T at five

Helps the sisters to revive.

 

Simple homely pleasures

Span the rolling years

Time sits still for decades

On sleepy Bulloch pier.

 

At last the call of time

Caught Katie in its clutches

And so the days now shortened

As eventide drew nearer.

 

Never dim, but always bright

Her smile lit up our day

We knock, she turns

‘Hello darling’ I still hear her say.

 

165. Kate Spencer née Catherine Anne Murray 

         8th July 1958 to 22nd February 2007

 

 

It’s hard to believe

Still harder to say

That dear, sweetest Kate

You passed swiftly away

Ten short years ago

At dawn this very day.

 

In the early morning ward

Your young life slipped away

As the birds in Lincoln chirped

And huddled in prayer

That a soul ever so loving

Was no longer there.

 

Where was the justice

In a life cut so short?

Life promised much more

When you were chosen by Dad

In the adoption ward

Of a Dublin orphanage.

 

Given up by your birth mother

Unable to care

For a baby who was born

When no father was there.

 

You could hardly remember

Mum was seeking a son

But came back with a daughter.

Your deep and sad eyes

Won over your mother and father.

 

Catherine they called you

In honour of Dad’s mother

Who living in England

Never quite managed

To meet her granddaughter.

 

With the sweetest of smiles

The house filled with laughter

And kindness and love

Despite early disaster.

 

The day of Claire’s Christening

You announced to the world

You were going nursing in Asia

You were joining Concern.

 

You returned with a husband

Devoted to you

In death and in life

In sickness and health

He was there for his wife. 

 

Twenty years later

We embraced as you

Slipped slowly away

So early on the saddest day.

 

Dear, sweetest Kate

So short were your days

But still your smile lingers

And your laughter still stays.

 

Your sister and I

Remember you still

We love you today

Forever we will.

166. Little Lil 

 

Love you little baby

No bigger than a fig

Love you little Lily

You’re getting really big.

 

First a poppy seed,

Then a weeny lentil

The progress is impressive

A daily growing miracle.

 

The world was never perfect

It’s no different now

But you will grow

And make it better somehow.

 

Never was a tiny creature

More anticipated or loved

Never more cherished or wished for

A warm welcome from above.

 

Dear Lily I love you

Indeed I always have

I cherish you dear Lil

And I always will.

 

 

 

 

167. Lorraine 

 

Oh I love your gentle smile Lorraine

I love your cheeky grin

I love the laugh lines in your face

Please keep those wrinkles in.  

 

Oh I love that laughter in your voice

It’s so clear and true

Your lilting Irish accent

The voice of Dalkey, you. 

 

Please don’t change one little thing

You’re perfect as you are

You’re modest and retiring

For me the brightest star.

 

Addenda

 

 

Souvenirs from the way of St James 
of Compostela, June 2011

1. Camino Musing, poem by Fraser Jennings

 

We walked, and talked, and walked some more,

Up down, and round Camino Frances way.

We talked, and walked, and talked some more,

And when alone there was still more to say.

To dream and ponder life, and all around.

To step out in anger in memory of lives snatched away,

But all the time a peace prevailed,

The cup of friendship never far away,

As the peaks of the Pyrenees we assailed.

And when we walked and talked no more,

We felt better for each foot sore day;

For to walk in friendship is no chore.

Pilgrim Verses 151-160

 151. Graveyard Thoughts

 

Sitting hunkered on the granite surround

Around the grave of mother, father and dear sister

Lives once laughing, breathing, loving,

Now speaking wordless loving whispers.

 

Watching the seabirds

As they sail and soar

Far above souls in a quiet graveyard

Forever still, forever eloquent. 

 

Sail on dear hearts

Deeper into the Milky Way

Further closer deeper

Forever on a maiden day in May

152. In Dean’s Grange Cemetery

 

The polished black marble 

Glistens in the noonday sun

Standing here beside the grave

Of mother, father, sister;

The midday lull envelops

While faraway a strimmer strims

A little later the graveyard silence

Overwhelms the quiet noon

In Dean’s Grange cemetery.

 

Occasionally the busy noise returns

To invade the fields of death

Persuading us that life reigns supreme

For now, at least.

 

Dear mother, father, sister

Departed from this life

Lying closely in cold clay

But warm within our memories.

 

 

 

153. The only child

 

Lonely he played on summer beaches

Bereft of siblings to fight or play with

He craved the company of strangers

While sitting on the shopfront wall.

 

Seeking solace in half heard conversations

Of older, rugby hardened boys

Mesmerized by the untouchable beauty

Of the giggling convent girls.

 

While leaning on a Raleigh bike

Bright racing green and new

Shining brightly in the April sun

Of innocent, suburban Sixty-Two.

 

Many hours spent looking, waiting

Invisible to the older crew

Anonymous to them he knew

 

His other friends, more confident

With countless siblings to spare

He enjoyed the quiet freedoms 

Endless hours without a care.

 

Even after many years

The yearning never leaves

To share the noise and bustle

To enjoy the laughter and endure the tears.

 

154. Was she always unobtainable?

 

Was she always unobtainable?

It ever seemed so.

Always perhaps the wrong time

Or maybe the wrong year

First it's you, then it's her

Never a way to bring it further.

 

Courageous and timid, you lost her

You should have moved slower and faster

She belongs to another one now

Yet hope springs forever somehow.

 

Oh! how it might have been

When she entered on your scene

Doubting how she might respond

You ducked and dived in the pond

Whose currents led to safety

And out of danger and love

Safe and foolish above!

 

Yes! Fortune favors the brave

A coward he cannot save

Nothing to fear but fear

Was it too much to say

I'm head over heels in love?

With you.

 

 

 

155. Our parents' parents 

 

We've now become our parents' parents

As they slowly slither into senility

We take their hand and guide their steps

As once they did, with humility.

 

Knowing well that unlike us

Their steps will not progress

For closed in ceilings

Replace the summer skies

Of hope and growth.

The world grows small in tiny rooms

Of the most expensive nursing homes

Gone the freedom and the wish

To run away and rush.

 

A world that's ruled by dinner bells;

Smells of soap and polish stay awhile

While relentless time marches on

In disinfected file

 

They sometimes know us, sometimes not

They live in times the world's forgot

Vivid for them the world of fifty years ago

More than the present and the now.

 

Defend their dignity

Protect their fragility

As they once cared for us

Babies in the cradle.

156. Me in the middle 

 

I'm a middle-aged man

With a middle-aged wife

Living a middle class life

On a middle class street.

Oh happy me!

 

Not too hot and not too cold

Not too high and not too low

Free from riches and free from woe

Free to come and free to go

Oh happy me!

 

Money comes and mostly goes

Like sand it streams between my toes

Not for me the sleepless nights

No stock exchange or money frights

Oh happy me!

 

Free from money, free from cares

Enjoying free stuff like fresh air

Breathing in and breathing out

Enjoying sunshine all about

Oh happy me!

 

 

 

157. Feared missing, now found 

 

They found her body

As we had feared so

Lifeless at the bottom

Of the dry ravine.

 

Barely fifty, yet looking older

Still quite handsome

Once the object

Of men's glances.

 

Now a victim

Of the chemist

And the doctor

And the bloody pills

 

To help her wake

Then help her sleep

A twilight life

Of chemistry.

 

Had she no mother,

Father, sister, brother?

Jealous boyfriend

Or young lover?

 

To pick her up

When she had fallen

To kiss those lips

Now blue and swollen?

 

What a waste

That one so young

Should exit life

To enter death alone

 

For every heart

There is a lover

For every breast

A warm embrace

 

There is no reason

For no affection

There must be someone

Now waiting for your touch.

 

 

 

 

 

158. Frank McDonagh 1924-2014 

 

The boats are bobbing now in warm Puertito Bay

As silently his body lies in church in far Portroe.

Two thousand miles and many shores apart.

And yet I sense his spirit in the water

That surges spumy o’er the polished stones

His spirit lives with every tide

That ebbs and flows on every sea.

 

Burial awaits beside his faithful Maeve

Who waited nine long years to the very day 

To lie together above Lough Derg

That feeds the ocean and the spring tide 

That washes up on these very shores.

 

It is to sunnier lands that Frank has departed.

Taken down the sail now the harbour’s won.

Returned a son to his eternal maker.

Reward to him who worked till later.

 

A gentle and a funny soul,

Who touched each heart he came upon  

With wistful tales of hope and folly.

Of bygone days now only half remembered

Of a world long gone 

And actors far departed

The empty stage

Still echoes with our laughter.

 

Peace at last!

Anchored at eternal rest

They’re smiling now

In heaven’s parlour!

159. The Welbys from Camus 

 

Quiet farmer Pat kept his cap

Day and night in rain and bright

He’d push it back while lighting pipe

While chatting in the cottage. 

 

A quiet man, not full of stress

With a wrinkled smile of happiness

He’d puff and smoke the baccy

At end of day, contented.

 

Cáit the wife, Cáit the mother

To children now long gone

To far off shores and lands

Her’s the voice of Camus 

 

Every day a loaf or two

Cooked in the trusty oven

Butter spread, churned last week

Cups of tea throughout the day

Especially when it’s raining!

 

Oh simple, happy, Spartan days

Protected on the wall

By pictures of the Pope

The Sacred Heart and all. 

 

Sundays after Mass spent dozing

Half listening to the game

That hissed from an ancient radio

But precious all the same.

 

Now the little feet

Of great grandchildren

Echo on the floor

Racing out the parlor door.

 

160. Kevin Andrew Murray 1920-1980 

 

Cut down cruelly by a stroke

Aged barely fifty two

He never once complained

But accepted all with faith.

 

Blessed at school with good results,

But lacking father, mother

His career never quite achieved

What with good advice it might. 

 

Raised in part by sisters

Who kept an eye on him,

They must have worried plenty

As he lived up life at twenty.

 

But meeting Lily slowed him down

And having family steadied him,

Being a father suited him

His single days forgotten.

 

Devoted to his god and church

Learnéd more than many

So-called experts in the cloth

Peerless intellectually.

 

Devoted to his rosary

On the carpet floor

The evening prayer with trimmings

Always room for more

 

One more prayer for a cause,

An unwell friend or Africa

Nothing too small or far

The door to heaven was prised ajar.

 

After the stroke for eight years more

He soldiered bravely on

Though things were tough at times

But he rose above them all

 

Till at last he passed away

On the floor of the local store

Buying chocolate as a treat

For my sister still at nursing school.

 

The last cheque he had made out

Was to a famine charity.

Lily used to ask why the wealthy

Didn’t pay as much as he.

 

He answered – ‘It’s simply this -

The rich have cars and planes

To pay for and so can’t

Afford as much as me.’