Una hora menos

  The dead The dead cannot bury their dead For they only have us to look after Their graves and headstones That give witness to a life once lived.  A life then filled with laughter Of tears of joy and sadness too Of passed exams and jobs accepted  High achievements and low disasters.  Nothing in this life has any meaning If we cannot celebrate the lives Of those who ploughed before us And made the furrow that we follow.  Plough ahead, our sacred duty To make our mark and leave our trace  To have used our measured time To make the world a better place.  There is no book better than a cemetery  For all the stories lie beneath the stones That keep their secrets and their sorrows And their hopes for better morrows.  Sleep soundly family, sleep soundly on Til perhaps we meet again In the meantime we will stand guard By your headstone in your memory. 

  Quiet moments   These are the quiet moments Before the last storm breaks This is the solemn evening Before the air’s sucked out.  Clouds are passing overhead untroubled It’s an August afternoon like any other Before the thunder shakes the ground And lightning strikes chapel towers.  For nothing’s safe or sacred now No God above or Lord below Can intervene to save a land Overcome by climate change.  It’s true the storm had gathered It became our next door neighbor So familiar that it didn’t trouble us Except for mad and anxious types.  Now it’s here, there’s no going back The ice berg’s come and gone No turning back the icy clock Time to repent is truly spent.  Oh give us back our time again! We could only use it better But our pleas fall on deaf ears Drowned by the waves with no one here. 

  Hurry my lover Hurry my lover and gather the music That captures our bodies and souls And huddle alone in our cave in the mountains   Far away from the crowds and the noise of the city.  The world will not miss us for after a week People return to their normal survival And the world will not stumble or fall It really won’t miss us at all.  But still we shall flourish away from the crowds  Who can wage their own wars without us.  The world will spin on and travel through space Ten million miles in the course of a day.  We shall be spared the worries and anguish Of predictions and warnings that never take place  On the world rolls while we curl closer together Unaware of the markets or the price of old gold.  At our front door we leave our shoes and our worries For inside is a temple to sacred endeavor  To quiet reflection and long solemn silences To dance and to fun, to music and song.  We shall dance through the evening ...

  What kind of God What kind of God have we just created  That somehow would require our prayers To remind him of his tender mercies? What kind of God would need reminding  Of war and cancer, of death and grieving? Surely not a God who’s deserving.  Our prayers to God are framed by men For God has done his bit long time ago All help already here or not at all.  For not all help is clearly seen There are many things Horatio  Not dreamt of in our philosophies.  A God who hides in coincidences Who does not respond to commands But will appear when least expected.  God is heard when noise abates God is seen when the lights turn down  At births and deaths and in between. 

  The hill The hill I walk each day Will reveal new discoveries As the habitual lays bare  New secrets on the way.  Every day a new adventure  A shaft of light through trees Never seen before but revealing New shadows on the steps  That lead up to the summit Where all is changing on the hour The sky, the sea, the Wicklow Hills That invite the hopeful traveler.  Today the wind is whistling gently  In the summer trees that shed some leaves Upon a path of dappled sunshine Beneath a mellow sky.  This moment is all mine I must surrender to the now Exile the transient,  The petty troubles of the hour.  The ferns are leaning  As in prayer and bend To gentle breezes Rustling in the midday sun.  A leaf comes gently Floating to the forest floor I stroke a noble oak All this is now enough Satisfied, we need no more. 

  Eyes look out Eyes look out from photos Unblinking, full of life and hope Now witness to the holocaust That took their lives and futures But could not take their memory.  Eyes that connect with mine Across the years and beyond the grave  Their gazes unaware of horrors Encountered in their final hours  We shall remember and revere them.  What man can do to fellow man What executioners can justify Now repeated as we crucify Our precious world whose innocence Offers no protection from the mindless.  Innocent eyes stare out unaware Of what lay ahead as they fall  Their noses could not yet smell the gas  That would claim them naked  In the killing rooms of extermination halls.  Standing in the tragic gap Between man’s love and hatred Holding two truths in our hands Unwilling to succumb to baseless hope Nor equally to helpless grief.  We will take another step upon our journey  That invites all pilgrims in the morning  Heading...

  The Angelus Bells The Angelus bells ring out across the sleepy suburbs And whisper all is well to devout believers While unbelievers take comfort too From forgotten childhood prayers.  When the world was safe and the future better The hopeful fifties promised bright progress  From the troubled forties our parents once endured And God was in his Heaven.  The Angelus bells sound clear for rich and poor  A democratic chime for this time and free to all A chime of hope and innocence when all around Dark shadows threaten and war cries sound.  The silence has returned to our unbelieving parish A midday peace slips down our garden wall For we will savor what God gives in August Peace is warmly welcomed in sun drenched lawns. 

  Awake   I wake, I check, I’m not dead yet.  I think I might sleep on but instead I’ll celebrate the day with coffee Then I might walk to fair Dun Leary.  Or perhaps I’ll wander down to Dalkey town, Have a swim at White Rock while soaking up the sun Return to Country Bake for a scrummy currant cake Pop into the church for a moment of reflection.  It’s a civilized old life we lead, retired and without needs And if we had them, who would heed? The class of sixty nine with silver heads The baby booming golden generation.  Dalkey is so civilized, the perfect combination A melting pot of rich and poor, old and young,  Artisan dwellings and lofty mansions  Stately piles and gleaming new structures.  Sensible mostly not to take itself seriously Enough wags and wits to teach us humility  Home to past stars, to Binchy and Newman, And newer folk too, lured by its beauty. 

  Christina McDonagh Christina the baby, one of thirteen,  Reared in the Dairy numbered twenty  On old Castle Street, in dear Sligo town Beside the bookmaker Kilmartin’s.  Impossibly exotic to a fellow of five Impressed by the hair up in a bouffant  Shapely high heels and ruby red lipstick  The height of high style in the black and white fifties.  Playing golf in Strandhill, cycling to swim Going on far cruises, she never stayed in She escaped to the office to tot up the sums She was ever full of devilment and fun.  I remember the fifties when she worked round the corner The Austin Princess for glamorous weddings  When big cars were big and impossibly plush In a decade severe and so simple.  Josie and Teenie bought their house High on the hill on the road to the Point Alas Josie never managed the move From quiet town Centre to wild ocean road.  Christina carried on riding her bike Cycling each day to the sea A figure bent over the b...

  What to do? What to do when no longer enjoying faith In a God that’s human and intervenes?  What to make of Jesus whom we followed Stumbling on the path of life? Do we abandon everything he taught Because we’re fairly sure his story changed The moment he was delivered to the tomb And friends were forced to make sense of death? What to make of teachings now part of us, The better part of us, within our core? Has it been a waste of time to love And follow better nature through it all?  The journey seems more lonely now The path more unforeseen As we navigate the pilgrim space Without church or choirs in unison.  And yet within our inner heart we know To respond to his invitation To be our better selves and neighbors For virtue is its own reward.  This claim to goodness seems friendless And yet makes no claim on any man Free to all of every creed and none Appreciated on our better days. 

  Sacrifice A forgotten virtue if truth be told When young men gave their lives Forsaking wives and children For kingdom, God and country.  Now we feel betrayed by churches, By leaders and by politicians Who knows where truth lies any more? The well’s run empty as is the store.  And what of us when young  Who gave our all to serve a God unseen? What now when old to give for climate change So sadly near and very real?  Do we feel we’ve paid our dues? And now it’s time for others? To sacrifice as once we did Half a century earlier? Do we feel our job is done? That we can spend while the young  Will have a future less secure As we run down the family’s funds?  Or do feel our time has come To show the mettle when we were young? Cut back consumption and our vices, To follow through our old advices?   

  I would be mistaken   I would be mistaken if I thought  With age came courage and sound wisdom For so often the reverse appears As we clutch onto things and moments That we must yield so very soon.  The generous teenage years will yield Sometimes to desperate clutching  Of what we sacrificed when young The years and money that we gave For adolescent hopes and dreams.  The challenge in our seventies To mine and find the seam of good So that our failing days may shine With the glow of golden goodness The key to true enchantment.  Lest we be found alone and cold In our vault of useless gold Starved of love bereft, untold The stories that transform our lives For only good and love survive.