Authors Note | |
I have had the pleasure of walking parts of the Camino de Santiago on four separate occasions between 2006 and 2013. It was a vivid reminder, if needed, that life indeed is a pilgrimage. For reasons of health and climate concern I am now discovering the pilgrim paths of my native Ireland. The pilgrimages marked my journey from spiritual certainty to questioning. Many of these concerns are reflected in the verses which for the most part were composed ‘on the spot’ with the help of a series of now defunct iPhones. The verses of varying quality were herded into a single document and with the help of family and friends we narrowed them down. I am in debt to my family, to my wife Lorraine, my biggest fan and to my children Daniel, Claire and Lucy who produced a book of some of my poems as a prototype for my 67th birthday a year ago; also to my friends Ann-Marie and Barry M and Susanna M, to fellow pilgrims Barry W, and Fraser J. My thanks to my collaborator in chief Vincent Daniau who designed the book and created the wonderful calligraphy. The final push to print the book came from a conversation with Dorothée, Vincent’s wife, who is the coordinator for AVP in Ireland, the charity which will benefit from the sales of this book. I am happy to support this wonderful cause.
AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project) in Ireland is a charity inspired and supported by Quakers and open to all. It seeks to promote peace through dialogue especially in prisons. AVP was founded in a New York prison by American Quakers forty years ago. It has operated in prisons and to a lesser extent in schools in Ireland for the past quarter of a century. It has transformed the lives of volunteers both inside and outside the prison. It builds on the conviction that there is goodness in every human being and each person has the ability to change their lives for the better. Everyone deserves a second chance. AVP runs workshops in prisons around the country at weekends. The workshops are led by volunteers from within the prisons and from the outside community. The Irish Prison Service is a big supporter of AVP but we need to raise other funds to attain our mission. This book of poetry is a small help. Profits from the book will go to AVP. To learn more about AVP in Ireland please check out www.avpireland.ie. Please feel free to volunteer and or donate!
Peace!
Carne, Co. Wexford, July 2019.
AVP Ireland Bank Account Details
IBAN IE75 BOFI 9010 9546 9261 67 BIC BOFIIE2D
Bank of Ireland, Dundrum, Dublin 14
Chapter 1
1. In the end
The August evening sunshine
Slants along the sandy Wexford beach
Between the woolly clouds
The vesper rays run racing o'er the shore
Sparkling on the ebbing tide that rears and sighs.
The hardy swimmers cast a lengthy shadow
And paddle in the shortened evening of departing summer.
The ocean air smells pungent from the foam
The seabirds squawk their evening song
On stubborn rocks above the swirling sea.
Hard to believe what science makes pure chance
The odds to me seem just too long
It seems more likely to be something else, beyond our dreams
Than an algorithm on a blackboard wall,
What decent, simple souls call God.
2. The full moon’s reflection
The full moon’s reflection
Shimmers in the swimming pool
While the fishing boat weaves
A weary journey ‘cross a silver sea
The full moon shimmers
In the quiet night
Of a summer Sunday morning
Two hours before dawning.
The precious moonlight
Paints houses and trees
With an eerie glow
With a silver film secretly.
This time is mine, before the dawn
When the world’s asleep
And before the morn
Moments to savor and to keep.
Nodding in my wicker chair
Till I’m woken and I stare
As daytime colors rob the magic
Of a world I now must share.
3. Bitter sweet morning in Adeje Paradise
I am pining while I’m sitting
In the window in the sun
On a soft spring-summer morning
In pleasant Paradise.
Soft the sun slips gently
Through the bedroom blinds
Blue the heavens sparkle
As May clouds cross my mind.
The whitewashed walls shine brightly
Beneath pink terrace tiles
The cars bump over gutters
Soon sweet silence spoils.
I mourn the days spent walking
In the hills above the valleys
Among deserted firs
Feeling quiet, peaceful, happy.
As we get primed to leave here
Leaving soul and skin behind
Another chapter opens, hopefully
In the land of saints and rain.
Life moves forward only,
It’s time to embrace the new
But a part remains enchained
That’s the part I must renew.
4. Lazy September noon at Our Lady's Lake
The early autumn breeze rinses the rushes
That guard the isle to Our Lady's crown
The Sunday faithful have melted
And the silence enters again.
A shrunken lady with a tiny dog
Walks the pilgrim path in peace.
The ugly loudspeakers fall quiet
No need for loud calls to prayer
For it has gently landed on our hearts.
And still the Sunday breeze makes ripples on the lake
That whisper of summer dreams
And keep away for another day
Cold thoughts of coming winter.
At this time in our lives days rattle
And whole weeks disappear
We accelerate on the final lap around the island
awaiting the winter shadow of death
And holy deliverance.
5. Sacred autumn sun
Sacred autumn sun
All the sweeter as you're fleeting
From another year that's seen
It's share of joy and keening.
Smiling warmly o'er the gentle fields
Of Carne in Southern Wexford.
The autumn lands lie quiet
But the sea breaks soundly on the shore
As foreign birds squawk and wheel
Towards African skies and warmer days
Than we can offer.
And yet and yet
The warm rays linger
Out-promising their span
Delicious though
The gentle heat
More welcome
Than a summer blaze.
These northern lands
Shiver at the prospect
Of a coming sunless season
Devoid of heat or light.
The snowy prospects of cribs
And Christmas fare
Fall short and we dearly yearn
This day may ever last.
6. Mile high Taucho Alto
Sitting on the stony wall
Of a deserted house once home
A mile above the sea in Taucho Alto
In the misty morning mountains.
What were the vanished dreams
Of families who called this village home?
For centuries perhaps
What domestic joys and sorrows?
The volcanic stones whisper silently
To tourist and hill walker as they pass
The quiet monument to hope and loss
Once host to babes and departing brides.
Too many days of funerals and sad goodbyes
From homesteads abandoned
With a view to wipe your eye
Wild flowers reclaim the land once farmed.
All the years of clearing land for what?
Reconquering nature laughs
At our puny efforts over many sweaty days
To tame what will not be tamed.
And yet it seems a noble call
To have fought and farmed
To have toiled and loved and lost
Better than no heartache at all.
7. Luxury Villa Row
In the sleepy street
In the sunbaked silence
No children play
But cameras whirr
To guard the empty villas
Where high walls
Imprison the wealthy ones.
What prison do they fear?
What jail suppressed in high walls
For money earned in darkened halls
And spun across the world to here?
Five thousand feet of polished marble
And beds where never laid a head
With pools untroubled for 12 months now
A listless silence undisturbed
Except by maids and cleaning staff
Preparing for the Christmas trip
That may happen or not at all.
And yet the window’s cleaned and grass is cut
With hedges trimmed
Tables polished, not yet turned
The wealthy ghosts have yet to come.
Perhaps a breathless week,
Spent mostly on friends’ yachts
Ordering Cristal when ashore
But a hardly a glance
Hardly a look askance
At the villa
At the top of the road
A cul de sac
That leads to nowhere.
8. Misty lies Gomera’s cloudy crown
Lying lazily to the west
This Island of peace and rest
Parted by the sea and sky
From breathless older sibling
Exhausting Tenerife.
Her laurel sylvan forests
Older than ice ages
Lie modestly below her cloudy skirts
Her craggy valleys slow the pace
Of man and beast
Across her valleys ring
The ancient whistled words
The half-forgotten world
Of native silbo
Home to homeless hippies
On tented sites
With ingenious bivouacs
Built from tossed out things
Of modern shop and drop.
Looking 'cross at Teide
Majestic in the moonlight
Shimmering when capped with snow
Resplendent lord and master
Of the seven isles below.
9. El Puertito 18.00 hours
Have I died and gone to heaven?
Or am I still in Tenerife?
In Paradise with whitened domes
Which we name our second home.
The sun is setting on a Saturday
Crowning a November evening.
Puertito is still abuzz
As tourists come and go.
Mixing with the locals at the bar
That nestles by the sea
Above a pretty beach
We’ll have a beer or three.
Young and old enjoy the pleasures
Of simple seaside games
Nature gives and lavishes
Her gifts to all for free
Little dogs and children
Frolic in the spray
The world is young and life is simple
Along Puertito Bay.
The boats are floating on a silver sea
The sun is slowly setting
The earth just holds its breath serenely
For peace is setting.
10. Walking slowly along the Norman Way, Co. Wexford
I ambled down the leafy lane
Listening to the songs of birds
And slowed awhile to marvel
At nature's brimming treasures.
Free to all who stop a moment
To drink the charm and sip the fragrance
Of wild wallflowers in a riot
And bluebells tumbling down old walls
In glorious confusion
Let the ambience sink in
Of whistles and of cries
Of spring time birdies
Calling from all sides.
The pigeons coo
And jackdaws shout
Above the melody
Of thrush and blackbird.
Beside St. Catherine's church
Along the Norman way
Eight centuries lie in ruins
By a well-kept cemetery.
Old Wexford secrets peeping out
From garlic and from undergrowth
Ancient gravestones stand slanted
Like aging sentries in their boxes
We stand in silence and salute you
Your stories live on in churches
Through age-old cemeteries,
Witness to a half-forgotten century.
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