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.’
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