Ground, Tierra.

 This is my ground

This is my ground, my barren land

With haunting beauty by the sea

With cinder paths that skirt the ocean

That breaks on weathered rocks below me. 

The Spanish sun, like a Spanish lady

Must be treated with great care

Too much exposure is not healthy

Less is more with the Iberian one. 

The air is filled with the finest spray

As the white waves reach the shore

And the thunder of the breakers

By night and day a constant roar. 

A pleasure boat is gliding past

Dancing in a world all of its own

The sails are filling, the world is spinning

Waltzing to eternal time. 

The sea is sparkling like a mirror

The evening sun refracts the light

It spreads it’s magic so sublimely

We are transported and enraptured. 

The waves will wash us and transform us

Given time they cast their spell

Touching white clouds reaching heaven 

Forgotten now our COVID hell. 

Pebble Beach

 Pebble Beach

The gardens run down to the sea 

Like Berkshire under the Spanish sun

Tidy hedges protect well tended gardens

Where careful owners greet the morn. 

Simple, precious, second-homes 

For the snowbirds who return each March

To a Britain that has endured the rigors

Of weary winter and a Brexit chill. 

Six months they’ve passed

Soaking up the sun

Growing old together

A blessing for everyone. 

The sea breaks on the magma

At the end of every street

Which opens to the ocean wide

With inviting waters on every side. 

Ten minutes walk along the path

Brings us to the boats with sails

Cleats that tinkle in the wind

That whisper fun and sea trips. 

Or we can march along the cinders

That lead to Amarilla mountain

A place of stern and blasted beauty 

Untamed by men over centuries. 

Forty minutes to reveal the ugly beauty

That only progress makes when halted

Half finished structures cry to heaven 

Weathered signs point to what used to be. 

There seems to live a tribe who bought

But could not find resources

To keep their winter homes repaired

A tale of caution to the unprepared. 

This is an island with short memories

Progress means up with the new

Forget the old and let it fester 

No Cesar Manrique to protect them. 

Spanish Street

 A street

A street of sleepy villas

Baking in the sun

Empty of their owners

Til the summer comes.

Each one securely guarded

By glass on walls and lofty gates

Shutters shutting out the light 

No sign of life by day or night. 

Or tomorrow or last week -

Splendid in detachment 

Gleaming marble glistens

In the Spanish sun. 

Some sparkling villas cost a million

And some cost much much more

What a pity when I knock 

That nobody’s at home. 

All we need when all is said

Is a terrace and a comfy bed

A kettle to make the morning coffee

And peace will surely follow.   

A daily tonic to view a sky

Blue and cloudless and a sea

That cheers and raises spirits

Brings joy and serendipity. 

Pinching

 Pinching myself

Pinching myself to make sure it’s real 

Not a dream but the realization

Life has returned, for us at least

Lucky enough to walk Canarian beaches 

And drink cheap beer in British bars. 

Young couples strolling past in love

Holding hands with their lives ahead. Outnumbered by the elderly

Who have spent the years together. 

They walk more slowly now and carefully

Ration money to make it last the week. 

Drinking on the terrace looking out to sea

The western isle lights up as the sun goes down

Then the clouds break and the evening

Shows promise for the day that follows. 

We shall not fall back into old bad habits 

Before the COVID plague nor take for granted

Our ridiculous and tremendous luck

That still holds out against the odds. 

We are the lucky generation in a blessed land. 

Two years later is as if nothing’s happened, 

The restaurants full and the airport buzzing,

Life returns to fill the void and persuade us

The long lost months have been a wicked dream

Like Lazarus we are reborn to the sounds of Queen

That echo from the Irish Scene. 

A little madness

 There’s a time 

There is a time to drop our cares

From sunken shoulders and accept

The world will survive this week without us 

Of drinks and meals and feeble jokes. 

There is just so much the just can bear

Then comes the time when we leave

Our shoes and troubles at the door 

Sneak out in sandals out the back. 

This is the season to be silly

To drop our guard and make mistakes

Small, funny and insignificant

We overstate our self importance. 

There is a time to let it rip

To order without knowing

The cause or cost but to abandon 

Our good sense once a year. 

We all are striving for the same

Emotions except in different sizes

We are not so different when

We see beyond our prejudices. 

 

Tiny Teddy

 Thinking of Teddy

Thinking of Teddy

Born four months early

Living with tubes and leads

The only things he’s ever seen. 

Hailing from Boston

But it doesn’t matter

Where young life appears

Loved both far and near. 

Witness to a precious life

For all life means the same

Priceless and worth praying for

We pray for each by name. 

Whether in a Boston  clinic

Or in an Auschwitz chamber

In a cratered Kyiv church

Every soul we will remember. 

Bless young Teddy as he fights

For his life this Friday evening

Bless the staff and parents

Bless the healing and caring. 

The nurses hands and the parents heart

Encompass Teddy in the ICU

We wish him well with our butterfly prayers

When we wake with hope on Saturday morning. 

Auschwitz eyes

 I look into the eyes 

I look into the eyes of those who died

In the concentration camp at Auschwitz 

They seem to speak across the years

And from my little mobile screen

Their lives and death spark tears. 

Aged but thirty, twenty or even two

Brought by train to the final station where

The appetite for murder knew no bounds 

The cries of millions died without the sound

Escaping from the halls of death. 

Bless me Father for I cannot

Understand a God who shuts his ears

To the prayers of his chosen ones

No sleight of piety can erase

The suffering of their final days. 

Their young clear faces speak to me

Across the decades, across the seas,

What can we do to avoid this scene

Being repeated in our times

This lack of kindness and humanity?

We look at Kyiv overcome by horror

Disbelieving the bombs and murder

Ukraine dies before our eyes

To save us from a similar fate

We must give help, not leave it late. 

There is a chain of Ukraine cities

Twinned with Auschwitz and with Birkenau

The innocent that haunt our days

Joined in sorrow and in grief

Challenge what we all believe. 

Wishing Well

 Wishing well

We start the day by wishing well

The friends and family that we love

Far and near, alive and dead,

We raise them up to God above. 

And then we turn to those 

Less easy to admire, 

Putin, Johnson, Donald Trump

And wish them well as Christ did preach. 

Love the sinner, hate the sin,

Kevin said to us, sharing

A wealth of wisdom

A key to lasting peace. 

Wishing Putin well makes sense

If we believe we can change the course

Of the war in Eastern Europe 

And save the very world. 

A nuclear war is now just possible

Who knows the mind of the man

Bereft of counsel that would urge

A return to sanity and compromise. 

Wishing well contains a power

Independent of the gods or men

The resonance of butterfly wings

Imperceptible but cumulative. 

Wishing well may make the difference 

Between hellish war and ceasefire

We never the know which angels wings

Span the globe, give peace a chance. 

We are all Kyiv

 We are all Kyiv

The world has reached a turning point

Left or right, no reaching back

To familiar paths now obliterated 

By Putin’s tanks and artillery shells. 

It’s forward only to the kingdom 

The untraced path to a foreign land

The genie’s out and will not return

History’s gear moves forward only. 

So do we grasp the future and dominate?

Or do we stumble timid and unwilling

To shape the future? And decide

What kind of world we will preserve?

The shells are raining down on Kyiv

Early this sunny morning 

Before we even wake and greet a day

What terrors face those who stay?

People of Kyiv are in our thoughts 

We shall not forget but witness

Their courage that has inspired us

So today we proudly stand and state. 

We are all Kyiv 

Sic

 Sic transit

I used to have a six bed house

Now I have a six foot box

The same size more or less

As the fellow from the tenements. 

I used to have a six speed Merc

Now I’m going nowhere

I used to have no time at all

Now I’ve more than needed. 

I used to check my stocks and shares

Now I check my fingers

Now my money’s gone and so

I know my monied friends won’t linger. 

I had some plans, then some more

I had no idea what was in store

While I’m planning the world goes by

The tinted windows of my limousine. 

I had no neighbors because the intercom

Forbade connection and the freedom

To chat with folks, to discuss the weather

We never spoke, never got together. 

The day before

 The day before

The day before the war began

We were sitting on the benches

Our eyes were closed and drinking in 

The sun that warmed our grateful faces. 

All was quiet, all was normal

In the streets of Dublin town 

Drinking coffee, planning trips

For when the summer came around. 

Not a cloud in the sky

No sign of war planes in the distance

No suggestion that peace was breaking

All is normal, until it’s not. 

Life is hanging by a thread

Everything we take for granted

Simple pains and simple pleasures

All is normal til it’s not. 

Suddenly we’re part of history 

Just a chapter in the school books

Our time has come, the day’s arrived 

Leave the luggage, just survive. 

Old age

 I saw the man 

I saw the man I may become 

Walking ‘cross the aisle 

In Michaels Church Dun Leary

Make his way to the sanctuary. 

Past the candles lit for causes 

Near and far, for young and old

Against a window that showed a sky

Dark with rain as showers ran by. 

Ten years older, early eighties

Pointing where I may arrive

If so fortunate to survive

And reach my eighties still alive. 

Slightly bowed, but resolute,

Neatly dressed with polished shoes

Is ten years enough for me

To smarten up with dignity? 

‘Old age is no fun’ my mother said to me

And to anyone who cared to listen

But still she holds the record

In the McDonagh family tree. 

Living longer is a blessing

Even if it means complaints

Aches and pains and doctors visits

Every pain is worth the gain

Of seeing dawn in the morning

And the sunsets light up the skies

Grateful for this one way ticket

And every station on the journey. 

Morning

 Morning

I am a morning man

Facing eastward, watching dawn

Approaching Ireland across the sea

Towards the rugged Forty Foot. 

The early sun bathes the Dublin hills

Lighting up the village necklace 

Killiney, Dalkey, Blackrock and Glasthule, 

Pretty as the Bay of Naples. 

Rising early, embracing light,

While Galway slumbers 

Western towns toss in bed

Unwilling yet to release the night. 

The energy of a busy city

Whose army is deployed

Leaving milk at neighbors’ doors

Restocking bright suburban stores. 

Yawning commuters heading East

To a Dublin largely asleep 

Jewel of the august province

Capital of the Irish Orient. 

No longer happy burning candles 

At both ends, the night draws in

A quiet treaty seals the fading light

And place is ceded to the western side. 

Peace at last, the busy day folds in

Time to lay down the pen and rest

The baton handed on to western towns

A day released from weary grasp. 

Involved

 Involved

You know us by our gait

Pushing buggies with young children

Far too old to be their parents. 

We have seen more than our forebears. 

Ours the challenge and the blessing

To walk with parents on their last mile

And hold the tiny hands and guide

The faltering footsteps of our children’s children 

Birth to death, we’ve been present 

In a way our parents never were. 

We’ve seen circles as the saga

Completes the circuit once again. 

We more often see our children

Than when they lived at home

We’ve grown to be relaxed and roles

Sometimes come and sometimes go

We are a lucky generation

We have lived and loved and traveled

Before the guilt kicked in

Before the world grew nervous.