Book escapes

 Book escapes

Much of the novels that we read

Are pointless, useless fluff

That will be pulped in record time

Just a pity they got printed. 

Most of the good stuff sleeps the sleep

Of the just on musty shelves

Their faded beauty unrecognized

By the careless market. 

Now and again a book survives  

It’s inner truth shines through

And gives us hope that life is fair

That quality is after all eternal. 

I’ve made a promise that in future

I’ll give the glossy tomes a miss

And spend my money on the classics

That will stand the test of time. 

What my father gave me

 What my father gave me…

Like a well that has run down

It seemed the waters staunched

In my middle years as I wrestled

With the world and his memory. 

And now I’ve remembered

How could I just forget

The ideals that he shared with me

That became my very floor-plans?

So close to me they stayed unseen

Hidden clearly for all to see

I thought I’d traveled but here I am

Where first the journey started.   

Impatient of the hypocrite

Well researched and sober

His favourite saying I recall

Love the sinner hate the sin.

A belly laugh, a howl of fun

When listening to the weekend Goons

The Sunday lunch pierced with jokes

That left him helpless with silly laughter.

Like many sons I ploughed my furrow

Broad and wide and far from home

Humbled now to discover

We are back where we belong.

Winter Wexford Sun

 The Winter sun

The Winter sun sits low on Carnsore Point

It hides behind the ragged hedgerows

Coming free to warm the grateful grass

Uncertain when the frost may come. 

The wind is down but the turbines turn

A quiet act of worship in the light blue sky

The silence covers the dewy meadows

An hour of peace and grateful

For this day serene, for this peaceful evening 

No special feast just an ordinary day

Of grace and goodness that transcends

Our baby troubles of the hour. 

Johnstown Castle Wexford

 Johnstown Castle

The ducks are swimming strongly

Across the upper lake

They’re busy little fellows

They’ve hardly time to take. 

The swans watch over young ones

They look so fierce at strangers

They glide across the lower lake

The castle in the background. 

The peacocks strut their stuff

Extend their plumes in wide abandon

Proud as punch but not too proud

To eat the crumbs from tourist lunch. 

This time of year is heaven

The woodlands change their color

And spread their magic leaves

On gravel paths to charm us. 

The magic scene created

By the low sun over trees

With the garden lake behind

We sit on our wooden chairs

Soaking up late autumn sun

Reflected in the mirrored waters

Of the lake that sends the soul

Into rapture and contentment. 

For the memory of this moment

Will last the days and span the years

And remain a pleasure that the heart

Will treasure in our nursing home. 

Clouds on the horizon

 Morning ferry clouds 

The morning ferry’s sailing

Past my breakfast window

Sliding like a silver swan

When I look up she’s gone. 

Leaving only golden clouds 

Lit up by a rising sun

The sky’s come bright

Alight from a wintry night. 

The ferry’s headed right to left

Arriving at the Harbour

While Rosslare folk are still asleep

Early on a Monday morning. 

The numbers in the hospitals

Are rising day on day

Some won’t change the way they play

They claim it’s too confusing. 

None as deaf as those who fail

To change their selfish lives 

Because their pleasures trump all causes

Their freedoms allow no patient pauses. 

They party hard ‘cause ‘they deserve it’

No care for others or themselves

The innocent who catch the Covid

The nurses of intensive care wards. 

In deadly wars they are the traitors

Consorting with the enemy 

What about their neighbors’ freedom

From death, disease and injury?

Sunday Morning Strollers

 Sunday morning strollers

Sunday morning strollers

Walking down the beach

Reflected in the puddles left

By a tide that’s out to sea 

November’s fast declining

As we welcome Christmas in

My shadow is extending

With the yellow sun behind me. 

The cold East wind is biting

It’s time for hats and gloves

But the senses feel a stirring

It’s so good to be alive 

I reach beach-end and turn around

The low sun reflecting in the water

Warms my face and lifts my spirits

A welcome bonus at Autumn end. 

Its a late November Sunday

With Advent round the corner

Today we’ll worship walking

Along God’s lonely shoreline. 

Another, then another

 We’ll have another

We are a nation, oft a stranger 

To moderation and to restraint

We’ll give it holly, and if we’re sorry

We’ll repent tomorrow and pay our way. 

We’ll have another, then another 

What’s your hurry? We’ll leave no bottle 

Half empty for the morning. 

What’s the point in wondering?

Not for us the half pint of bitter

Or the tiny glass of table wine

No, fill that glass til overflowing

Birds don’t fly on one wing over there

Not a race of small half measures 

Empty and full we understand 

Time in the wee hours spent sleeping

Is time wasted when a raging party 

Flows freely in the kitchen. 

Then time for songs sung with eyes half-shut. 

These winter nights will pass more swiftly

When no one’s a stranger and all are kin

In the wee hours in the kitchen. 

Regrets are passed round in a parcel 

To be opened on the morrow

But for now we’ll raise the rafters

Exiling sadness, forgetting sorrow. 

Response to Cop 26

 Hope for the best

The climate is changing

We hope for the best

Being serious people

We’ll prepare for the worst. 

We’ll pull out the stops

We’ll cut down our travel

We’ll live far more simply

Our footprint will shrivel. 

But we have to assume

Not all share our goal

Some talking the talk

But avoiding the walk. 

Most people will wait

Til the water is lapping

Filling our gardens

Coming in our front doors. 

Then the slowest will move

As fast as they can

Straight out the door

From pot into the pan. 

We humans will change 

Not before pressed

While ethics fall down 

We follow needs must. 

I look to the future 

Without hope or despair

Interesting feelings

If afforded somewhere. 

No, I put my hand to the plough

And drive straight ahead

We can only mow lawns

As Voltaire once said*

*il faut cultiver notre jardin

Candide by Voltaire 1759

Precious hours

 In the precious hours 

In the precious hours 

Before the soul has left the body

After the heart stops beating

As the flesh grows colder. 

The soul looks round 

At friends and family gathered

Warmed by prayers and thoughts

Moist from tears. 

The soul is first in limbo

Caught between the worlds

Unwilling and unable 

To bid its farewell yet. 

But soon it must release its grip

Fly away as the coffin’s dropped

Taking note of plot and number 

Of the body’s deep eternal slumber. 

Then off it peels into the galaxies

As cosmic dust from where we started 

In a spiral that grows forever

Encased in memories like a lover. 

Don’t pray for me for I’ll be fine

Keep me in your heart, that’s all

Harvesting the better bits

We had some fun you may recall. 

I’ll think of you on your journey

That all men make to the stars

Do not fear the final furlong

Into the Light and blinding glory. 

Keep dear Teilhard in your pocket 

De Chardin’s vision in your shroud

His sweeping arc of goodness

Enfolding an eternal promise. 

Embracing all the universe

Covog

 Covog

The fog from Covid dulls my brain

My grey cells turn to mulch

I don’t make sense half the time

Not even to myself. 

My better half is much the same

We often lose the plot 

Our fondest hope is half plus half 

Makes one and sense wins out. 

It’s mostly so but sometimes

Half plus half makes nothing

Then back to the drawing board

To check the careful adding. 

We’ve all gone just a little mad

These eighteen months of hell

Have put us on the edge

We’re holding on until

The remedy will surely come

When normal programs play

When embraces and the feel of skin

Will save us from this plague. 

The time will come

 The time will come

The time will come when we are neither christian nor pagan

Neither believer nor unbeliever

For it will be a time of knowledge, not belief,

When distinctions fade. 

As Jesus said so wisely

There will be neither married nor single

Male or female

English or Irish. 

It will not matter in what plot we’re buried,

In simple Quaker graveyard or in polished stone,

Young or old, plain or handsome, 

Nothing to distinguish us in eternity. 

The low autumn sun

 The low autumn sun

The low autumn sun caresses the fields

Where busy the cattle graze at their leisure

With the coming of winter and the longer cold nights

Like the birds in the Bible, each is sufficient. 

The wind turbines throb and pulse with great power

The west winds are driving them further and faster

The lights in Kilmore will burn brightly this evening 

The table lamps glowing behind the lace curtains. 

The sun is now setting beyond the far Saltees

The ocean awaits with arms far apart

While down on the rocks the waves are exploding

Washing the shore on the incoming tide. 

Our shadows have lengthened 

We have become giants

Walking the path, skirting the coast

Warm hands in our pockets, our backs to the wind. 

The ferries are coming from Wales and from France

On the horizon twixt the sea and the sky

Gleaming and steaming towards the safe harbor

Tonight they’ll eat supper in fair Rosslare port. 

Over in Glasgow they’re talking a great deal

To save this poor planet, to give it a chance

To bargain some minutes from the clock that is ticking

Implacably moving towards midnight in winter. 

1st of November.

 The first of November 

It’s the first of November

The clocks have gone back

The glorious morning heralds a day

Full of promise 

We’re sitting in deck chairs

Eyes closed to the sun

That warms the cream flagstones

Our troubles have gone. 

Only birds break the silence 

Of this glorious noon 

The boats are tied up

The tractors are resting

A second coffee sipped

Then a third - but who’s counting

At this time of year?

A day gifted from heaven

Unexpected, undeserved

But we’ll enjoy it all the same

The shadows are creeping

Across the green lawn

Cut for the last time

Yesterday morning. 

We’ll soon move our chairs

Back into the sun 

Though low in the sky

Welcome and wan.   

What tomorrow shall bring

We simply don’t know

We’ll drink back our coffee

And enjoy today’s show. 

November

 October delivered November 

A wild storm bookended October 

Battered the trees and our home

On a stormy night that improbably

Yielded a soft and serene dawn. 

November has arrived all gentle

A pretty morning wrapped up in the sun

The sky is blue, the air is soft

Slowly warming after the morning chill. 

All is forgiven, forgotten

We gather the leaves from the lawn

The hungry sun still seeking out

A corner the shadows haven’t conquered. 

This season when daylight is squeezed 

We yearn for the sun like the trees

Seizing each sun drop 

Caressing each moment. 

Fearing the day when the sun

Fails to clear the house beside us 

And we are in shade’s prison 

Dark and cold til Spring comes around. 

Where will we find the bright courage

To face these months when despair

Threatens to haunt and to freeze us

The strength to reach March once again?

A lost cause

 Collector of lost causes

He is a collector of lost causes

He never likes to win

He chose the Irish Language

He studied long at school. 

Latin, another dying language

He learned by rote in Rome

Not to mention Ancient Greek 

Logic learned from dusty tomes. 

Let’s not forget  the businesses

He joined and left when young

Not a single one left unexpired,

They all grew old and died. 

Undeterred, ten years ago

The climate challenge he accepted

Believing in his innocence

A better outcome beckoned. 

The climate’s changing but not us

We wish and want, we puff and pant,

To change the world while doing zero

While adding signatures to the pages. 

It’s strange to feel that fifty years ago

A life of vows ahead of time

A simple life with simple wants

Could have saved this planet from excess. 

And so he yearns a life so pure

Without a finger raised to help

While cleaving to his cars and cares

The sacrifices shall be few if any. 

The gains that follow are so puny

As we hurtle to a conflagration 

It’s not he who smokes and burns

No, that’s for a future generation. 

Fishing for souls

 Fishing for souls 

Off he went, fishing for souls

An hour before the dawn

Down to the Harbour

Where the deep ocean roars 

The swell covers the pier

With grey souls flapping on granite. 

An ordinary day in the autumn

A humdrum October morning

The eastern sky without promise 

Before light filters in through the cracks

As he makes his way to the sea. 

A few hours later with souls hauled ashore 

Fresh souls and old souls

Unsure of their future

Picked out of the sea

God’s catch for the morning.  

Work all done, he heads wearily home

Another day over, another soul saved

In a twilight world, unseen by many

But as real as the dawn of any day.