Heels in the hall,
A sound so safe:
A welcome noise in the night.
As she beelines to her bed
Her taxi turns and fades away.
MORNING STAR
Like a barnacle glued to a rock
She slept in her bed unrelenting,
Unconscious of each early call
After a weekend of merriment.
We drove for the train in Tralee-
Already the engine was throbbing;
A puff and hot tea on the platform
Before boarding to go to Cork city.
Going home on the road to Listowel,
The lights of North Kerry below me
Gave way to brilliance of blue
That grew in the heavens above.
The eastern colours were spreading
Over the back of Stack’s mountains;
I could see silhouettes of the trees,
The morning star shining so brightly.
PUMPKIN SOUP
Seagulls standing in a windswept field
Look exactly like the way I feel
After leaving London on a Sunday afternoon.
Slowly mile by mile the night comes down
With a kind of November melancholy.
On either side we see the country wide
Where the trees still wear their leaves
And sheep their pastures graze on hillsides
Overlooking sweeping fields, some ploughed,
Some showing winter corn freshly sown.
Stansted airport draws near; dear daughter,
The joy of being with you still echoes in us
As we eat the fudge you gave us in Victoria.
Meanwhile you are making pumpkin soup-
At least that’s what you said you’d do
On getting back to Crofton Road in Camberwell.
BADGERS IN THE WOOD
Stopped in our tracks
We stood in the wood
Seeing her pass before us:
She was the badger black and grey
Who shared our sylvan glenside.
Barely breathing in wonderment,
We watched the quiet manoeuvre
As her three cubs in single file
Followed closely behind their mother.
They all had their birth
In their sett in the earth
Beneath an old ash on the hillside.
Today their thirst made them bold
To take their pathway of old
Down to the pool in the stream
To have a long drink of cool water.
They are known to be shy
Of the sun when it’s high,
To hunt by the moon till daybreak.
We have new life in our glen
And imagine the thrill
To meet in our blue belled woodland.
CAT ON THE STREET
She closes the door as she steps outside
At the end of her day’s designing;
Stooping she greets a cat on the street
Whose bushy tail it exceeds him.
He’s thrilled he is at this midnight hour
To meet with a lady of fashion.
While head to head they talk and purr,
Her handbag slung low from her shoulder,
He takes good note of its soft leather look
Like the feel of her hands that caressed him.
He swishes his tail on his way up the town,
Slipping in through the dimly lit archway;
At the end of the day he was only a stray
And he was after being treated like gentry.
FALL OF THE FLEDGLING
In the grass beneath the noisy rookery
The frightened fledgling crow I found:
He lay there flattened and diminished
By his fall from grace from far above.
I said I’d try to change his awful luck.
Raucous caws from a beak from Jaws,
When hungry, would go strangely silent
After he had swallowed what I fed him.
Satisfied, the little orphan went to sleep-
My mystery guest of feathered blackness.
He was not well this morning: sad to say
He died. I had my hopes that he’d survive
(I felt sad that I would never see him fly);
As he left, the light he lit was turned out.
I can only try to understand the darkness.
LIKE AN ALIEN
That Sunday afternoon,
Out on the verdant lawn
An alien stood:
Well it could have been!
I came back to earth
And looked again:
It was a Sika stag-
Head on;
Straight-up antlers-
Antenna like.
No more doubt;
Strangers staring: daring.
Still no move.
Head down, grazing:
This noble animal icon
An honour to behold-
Past glories of centuries
Only a look away.
Out of bounds here,
Far from the herd
And mountain forests,
Making me a part of time,
Sharing his wild life-
Until the sounds of children
Made him swing about,
His tail a fash of white.
Back to the wood he fied
As if he never was-
My strong brown Sika deer.
Now I often look and think
That he might reappear.
RUSTIC FELLOW
A fox cub calmly crossed before me
And I brought my motor to a stop,
To respect a fox’s daily right of way-
Bulldozed one day against his will.
Pulling in from the flow I saw him go.
He was naive and young and shy;
Stopping in his tracks, head high,
He stood there asking why of me.
He gave me a lingering look of blame
All the way over as far as his cover;
We had invaded the private space
Of a wild and worthy rustic fellow.
BAREFOOT
Scents of the summer incense to his senses,
The boy walks barefoot most of the way.
By hills of furze bushes above the soft bog,
Though ever so slowly, the river flows free
Through flower beds of bright yellow wild iris
Where the black water hens hide every day.
In meadows the cowslips all are in bloom
But he has to hurry on fast to his school;
Beneath his bare feet he feels the wet dew.
As the startled hare springs out of his lair
He leaves in his wake a wash of light spray-
His four paws are flying, ears up, he’s away.
SNAKES ALIVE
Watched the African snake handlers
As they drew their bread and butter
Unceremoniously out of canvas sacks
And dared us, standing there in awe
Of writhing bodies and darting fangs,
To coil them round our necks for fun.
Some of us buried our fears to dare;
Afterwards to be no worse for wear:
Their masters from Morocco gripped
The snakes behind each moving head
To let them free meant we were dead.
COMING FROM THE CASBAH
And then we left the Casbah in Morocco,
Coming down a long and winding stairs,
And upwards came an entourage at speed
With a sheep for sacrifice, a helter skelter,
In celebration of the feast of Eid Al Adha,
Allah’s sparing of the son of Abraham,
At the end of their Ramadan, family time;
Tangier youths unstoppable in
their stride.
We stepped aside and then in my inner eye
I could have been away on Calvary’s hill
As the Holy Lamb of God was passing by.
CÚCHULAINN’S SONS
In the annals of Cúchulainn’s sons
Appear the names of our ancestors;
Time of Land League, landlords and evictions
When our Gaelic Games were spawned
While we waited for the dawn of freedom;
Floating on a tide of national pride
From the nineteenth to the twentieth century.
Barefoot players on pitches improvised,
Tournaments and marching bands
Of brass and reed and fife and drum:
The baronies hurling the troubled years away
With camáns shaped like camógs;
The flying sliotar a harbinger of peace
Sending shivers down the spine of time,
Raising up our ancient race
To feel again our rightful nationhood.
Running on—this fever in the blood,
Leaving to posterity dexterity and style-
Present on the field of play today
In the genes of great grand children,
Accurate as them in every game
In their aim from centre field or side line cut
And we cheer them from the stands
For they are Cúchulainn’s youngest sons.
EXIT 9
Shannon Airport is at Exit 9—
That way went each of mine;
An embrace to say goodbye:
Time enough the time to cry.
Last looks at departure gate—
Another wave but it’s too late.
Words we had meant to say
Now must wait another day;
Like two bare trees we stand—
Isolated in departure land.
FROM THE PROM
Uplifted sunglasses on women who small chat
Over coffee at the terrazzo tables in Torrevieja;
The pretty coloured one is oh so chicly shaded,
Facing the February sun, dipping at five o’clock.
Meanwhile I’m playing musical chairs in vain
To escape the glare; green palm trees grouped
Over my head, my only allies now above me;
Beneath the tables there are sparrows hunting.
Like the anchored ship that now is setting sail
Tomorrow we’ll go back to bitter wintry winds
Where the swallows nests are empty under eaves;
Today I saw them fly over our apartment attico.
Raiding ocean waves erode the red volcanic rock
But on the beach the water laps and plays around
In semi circles; sometimes crashing suddenly,
Causing me to awake from hypnotic sea sonatas.
The strolling couples take pictures from the prom
Of castles and cathedrals not built of solid stone
By architects or builders but by a busker bold-
A new Gaudi with the shifting sands of centuries.
NEW ROADS
On the western brim of Leith Hill,
Looking at all of North of Kerry,
There was a long blind bend
In the shape of a semicircle.
Now that has been cut off
To be replaced forever
By a new road climbing over-
Cut into the hill like the bed of a river.
I’ll miss that scenic semicircle:
Perfumed primroses in the sun
Displayed along the grassy ditch,
Dressed in yellow every one.
Only a brief look at the seaside
From the wheel as you drove by:
To the west a long low valley
That stretched to Ballyheigue;
For it was a risky business
To be flirting with the view,
Not knowing what’s behind you-
Maybe a big black four by four!
The boot is down, the window up,
This time you’d see no more.
I have waited for the moment
The new road straight and wide
Would surmount this hill in Kerry
And we’d have take of to the sky;
To be on the latest low horizon
Above Tralee the town deep down
And sleeping sleek Sliabh Mish
Of fleeting shadows one by one;
Of a tragic but romantic tale
Of a lovely rose born in the vale
And of her exiled lover and his lament
When the fair one died for love of him.
In its ballrooms of blushing roses
I sowed the wild oats of my life;
My Ford Cortina that I loved
Could almost drive home by itself-
Each hill and dale we knew so well.
The contours of Stack’s Mountains
Have been embedded in my brain:
I see them when I’m driving
Through the wide and fertile plains
But I think that it’s a holy shame
That they are acupunctured
By those wind turbines-such a sight!
White phantoms of the future?
Not at a price this high let there be light.
This is it at last—a sight to be seen!
This stretch of rising road, this dream:
From the blueprint to the masterpiece
Of many giant machines and men;
After all the excavation of the earth
It was filled with stone and chips,
Then the rolling and the tarring hot
And the building of its rising hips-
Each sloping down, green grassed,
Replacing what was taken at the start.
But I won’t forget the bend beyond.
I will slip off this road some day
To see if there are still primroses,
To view the bright and distant bay.
Now I’ll make a wish and welcome
A smooth black shining motorway.
SUNDAY SHOES
On Sundays for mass he would wear his good shoes:
To be ready they were always polished on Saturdays;
With pride in each stride he went around by the road.
The shortcut he took to his school Monday morning.
Scenting another hot summer climbing over the walls,
In bare feet through the fields he made his way freely
He skirted flotillas of furze in yellow blossoms ablaze;
On its bank he followed the flow of the lazy bog river.
Through beds of wild iris small black water hens play-
He would love to stay for the day to better his learning;
In lush meadows the cowslips and buttercups bloomed
Though he kept to the path and didn’t pick any of them.
The strong startled hare shot straight up from his lair,
Ears up he took off in the bright dew of the morning;
His race was for freedom, his peace was disturbed,
Now he lightly springs up on a stonewall of limestone;
Looking back in distain at this lad so docile and tame,
He was away on his own out of view and free and easy;
Crossing over the bridge the boy put on his old shoes
To walk on the tar road down to the old schoolhouse.
CORNFIELDS
This year’s maize turns green to yellow,
Ripening by the hour in Healy’s fields:
Corn with a continental look,
Growing near the grotto in Killocrim;
Showing off its kilt of summer sheen
To your left and to your right;
Waving acres reaching to the river Feale
Where philosophical fishermen unwind.
EMBRACE
Bedecked with fans of ferns and little purple flowers,
Gla
d earth if you but could raise your lips to mine
And someway sling your leafy arms around my neck
I would lay with you and forever be your nature lover.
On the road that tops the hill and leads to Coolnaleen
We scent the summer hedgerows in the heat of day,
Remarking all the milestones like a low strong oak
Or gentle smooth young beeches and the wily ash.
Yellow furze and flagger by a hidden stream below;
Dashes of red roses and little strawberries ripening-
From the gateways fields are shaven from the baling,
Charolais as well within and the mountains far away.
HERON
Grey heron on black water,
Standing deadly still on stones;
In midstream a river shadow.
CEIST AGAM ORM
Ceist agam orm féin:
Ó chrann atá lom
Cad é an síor gearán
Sa choill atá láimh liom?
An éan atá ann?
Ní fheicim aon éan-
Ní éan ar an gcrann.
Cuirim cluas orm fein,
Ag féachaint in airde,
Is aithním an fhuaim uaim
Ar deireadh mar ghíoscán:
Fuinseoig ag caoineadh,
Ina luascán ag gaotha,
Ag fulaingt mar dhuine.
I ASK MYSELF
What’s that?
That sound from the wood!
Does that bare tree complain a lot?
It does not!
It cannot be.
Is it the call of a bird?
It might maybe.
But high on its boughs
I can’t see a thing:
Not a sign I see.
I listen in, all ears,
And found out now
That the sound
That had puzzled me
Came after all
From the tall old ash tree,
Creaking in pain,
In vain to complain
Of the way that the wind
Blows to bow and to bend it.