Una hora menos

  The forest fresh The forest fresh with fine ferns  On a merciful summer day When the skies are kindly and grey  When nature exhales with cool air.  So many greens all around Different shades and hues abound Grateful for the gentle gift As a season silently drifts Into the arms of autumn Out of the heat of summer The yearly miracle delivers  To lovers and believers.  The grasses bend in a breeze Leaves dance high in the trees Couples are holding warm hands As true romance will demand.  It’s hard to know what to say For miracles feature every day High on a Dublin Hill Deep in a heart so still. 

  Democracy will decide Democracy will decide Which poems might live And which shall die.  Some will thrive for a year or two Some will never see the light of day  Only time will say.  Some will sleep for a year or three Others ignored for a century  Until the people otherwise decree What shall rise above  Which verses live And which should rest.  Far away from the fads of the day What will dissolve in time And what will forever stay.  For fashions come and fashions go But cream will rise and settle Virtue will always show its mettle.  The poet’s pride is not the thing   The funeral bells may ring Now long dead his ashes scattered.  If words can speak beyond the grave A new generation can surely gain From insight not lost but just delayed

  For Sinéad A voice so pure A life uncertain High notes perfection All around rejection.  So near to all, so far away We shared her humor And her hell Life wasn’t easy.  A heart that opened Wide and selfless A spirit tortured By her demons.  In turns so charming And happily chatting At times recluse  With curtains closing.  Above it all a rage that burnt Among it all she felt the hurt Beyond the now she lives on What dictates the good die young? 

  Trinity Church Path   At the corner of the road round Carne stands a remarkable church, unique in Ireland. Built in the early nineteenth century by Catholics and Protestants to allow worship at separate times. Beside the church lies a small cemetery and from the church files a lane that leads down to the sea.  The honeysuckle breaks above the weeds Above the nettles and the brambles On the lane that narrows with each year  The winding path that leads us to the sea.  Mombretia peering out unsure Into a world that buzzes full of life Brambles flowering with the promise Of berries come September.  This lane is overgrown and busy With teeming life of plants and bees With chirping birds who call unseen From bushes and low trees Bent in prayer with the western breeze Obedient to the winter storms  That rake the headland in the shortened days Of winter over Carnsore Point.  But thoughts of summer now prevail In the midday heat of mid July Pale blue mid...

  The empty bowl He licks the empty bowl His only meal today  Food in Yemen is so scarce And so is hope and justice.  His four year eyes have seen More sadness than we witness In a well fed century In a first world country.  His distended belly shows How unfair a world we share That one world gets too fat today While the other fades away.  We wonder silently perhaps  If this young blameless child Has no food or future  What right should we? If his world ends tomorrow  How can we claim to share a world With the weak and underprivileged  Accused by our own knowledge?