Emergence

It was there all along, great peace,
I wear it again, I turn around in it.

What changes inside when the spark lights,
the fizz of a match coming up,
candles growing their yellow robes.

Curled up cottonball alone and warm,
at sea, rowing sporadically,
it feels like shipwreck and being found,
it feels like round rings falling into round.

On Limantour beach
I pay for concealment with dollars of sand,
birds fly the razor breaks of the waves,
I can find what I placed in the dark
I can dive by the light of Venus.

I like where I am sitting now,
but at your door I got shy,
left after knocking lightly.
One day you might hold me

in your piano hands
life all arpeggios and resolving chords.

New Territory

Several things announced the fact to us:
The captain’s Spanish tears
Falling like doubloons in the headstrong light,
And then of course the fuss—
The crew jostling and interspersing cheers
With wagers. Overnight
As we went down to our cabins, nursing the last
Of the grog, talking as usual of conquest,
Land hove into sight.

Frail compasses and trenchant constellations
Brought us as far as this,
And now air and water, fire and earth
Stand at their given stations
Out there, and are ready to replace
This single desperate width
Of ocean. Why do we hesitate? Water and air
And fire and earth and therefore life are here,
And therefore death.

Out of the dark man comes to life and into it
He goes and loves and dies,
(His element being the dark and not the light of day)
So the ambitious wit
Of poets and exploring ships have been his eyes—
Riding the dark for joy—
And so Isaiah of the sacred text is eagle-eyed because
By peering down the unlit centuries
He glimpsed the holy boy.

Old Roads

Missing from the map, the abandoned roads
Reach across the mountain, threading into
Clefts and valleys, shuffle between thick
Hedges of flowery thorn.
The grass flows into tracks of wheels,
Mowed evenly by the careful sheep;
Drenched, it guards the gaps of silence
Only trampled on the pattern day.

And if, an odd time, late
At night, a cart passes
Splashing in a burst stream, crunching bones,
The wavering candle hung by the shaft
Slaps light against a single gable
Catches a flat tombstone
Shaking a nervous beam in a white face

Their arthritic fingers
Their stiffening grasp cannot
Hold long on the hillside—
Slowly the old roads lose their grip.

The Pitch Piles Up in Part

The pitch piles up in part
on part of the heart’s abyss.
Unbalanced from exaggeration
I career towards crisis.

Blood gangs up in the groin.
Nerves know at the temples.
In one flush fury thrusts
and the wall of reason tumbles.

The eye rolls out of orbit.
The body bucks like a beast’s.
Driven daft by his dream
the whole man bursts.

Spannered, the works
fly all over the shop:
wardrobes, women, babies,
bedroom, kitchens—scrap.

In bits
things mean more
terribly themselves—
undone for.

I pick, prefer,
accept, adopt
just like a feather sorter
in his feather loft.

The blindness over,
bleakness stretches out
empty as an ocean
round one small boat.

But something’s always had it,
burnt out, destroyed;
for whatever new comes from it
something old died.

Fishing Harbour Towards Evening

Slashed clouds leak gold. Along the slurping wharf
The snugged boats creak and seesaw. Round the masts

Abrasive squalls flake seagulls off the sky:
Choppy with wings the rapids of shrill sound.

Wrapt in sliced airs of fish and tar,
Light wincing on their knives, the clockwork men

Incise and scoop the oily pouches, flip
The soft guts overboard with blood-wet fingers.

Among three rhythms the slapping silver turns
To polished icy marble upon the deck.

Surprise

Since we were told it we believe it’s true,
Or does as it’s intended. Birds eat worms,
The water flows downhill and aunts depart.
Sea heaves, sky rains and can be blue.
Always love cherishes and firelight warms.
That knocking sound you hear is juts your heart.

Nothing is angry long and all surprises
Are well provided for. The dog that died
Became a legend and then had its day.
Sooner or later someone realizes
That a mistake occurred and no one lied.
If it is said to be then that’s the way.

But soon when doors are opens hints are found
Of strange disorders that have no because.
In one room on the ceiling is a stain.
Someone is missing who should be around.
Some games are stopped by arbitrary laws
And an odd I does things it can’t explain.

Nothing is order now and no forecast
Can be depended on since what’s declared
To be may not be so and each face wears
A false expression. Yet the very last
Surprise of all still finds us unprepared:
Although we say I love you no one cares.

Odysseus

Last year’s decencies
Are the rags and reach-me-downs he’ll wear forever,
Knowing one day he’ll sober up inside them
Safe in wind and wife and limb,
Respected, of unimpeachable behaviour.

Meanwhile he goes forward
Magniloquently to himself; and, the fit on him,
Pushes his painful hobble to a dance,
Exposing in obscene wounds and dilapidation
The naked metre of the man.

His dog will die at sight of him,
His son want fool-proof, and his lady-wife
Deny his fingerprints; but he
With his talent for rehabilitation
Will be his own man soon, without ecstasy.

Pilgrimage

When the far south glittered
Behind the grey bearded plains,
And cloudier ships were bitted
Along the pale waves,
The showery breeze—that plies
A mile from Ara—stood
And took our boat on sand:
There by dim wells the women tied
A wish on thorn, while rainfall
Was quiet as the turning of books
In the holy schools at dawn.

Grey holdings of rain
Had grown less with the fields,
As we to that blessed place
Where hail and honey meet.
O Clonmacnoise was crossed
With light: those cloistered scholars,
Whose knowledge of the gospel
Is cast as metal in pure voices,
Were all rejoicing daily,
And cunning hands with cold and jewels
Brought chalices to flame.

Loud above the grassland,
In Cashel of the towers,
We heard with the yellow candles
The chanting of the hours,
White clergy saying High Mass,
A fasting crowd at prayer,
A choir that sang before them;
And in stained glass the holy day
Was sainted as we passed
Beyond that chancel where the dragons
Are carved upon the arch.

Treasured with chasuble,
Sun-braided, rich cloak’d wine-cup,
We saw, there, iron handbells,
Great annals in the shrine
A high-king bore to battle:
Where, from the branch of Adam,
The noble forms of language—
Brighter than green or blue enamels
Burned in white bronze—embodied
The wings and fiery animals
Which veil the chair of God.

Beyond a rocky townland
And that last tower where ocean
Is dim as haze, a sound
Of wild confession rose:
Black congregations moved
Around the booths of prayer
To hear a saint reprove them;
And from his boat he raised a blessing
To souls that had come down
The holy mountain of the west
Or wailed still in the cloud.

Light in the tide of Shannon
May ride at anchor half
The day and, high in spar-top
Or leather sails of their craft,
Wine merchants will have sleep;
But on a barren isle,
Where Paradise is praised
At daycome, smaller than the sea-gulls,
We heard white Culdees pray
Until our hollow ship was kneeling
Over the longer waves.

The Planter’s Daughter

When night stirred at sea
And the fire brought a crowd in,
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.

Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went—
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly,
And O she was the Sunday
In every week.