BEGIN
As I went through the land of Lyre
Sang from the foliage green and gay,
And there stood Dan with a pipe in his hand,
And there in the sycamores misty shade
Claoninsint
You know, we know, they said,
My heart is looped around the rutted hills
My grandfather tended the turf fire
I saw the wise face now with its hundred wrinkles,
I should have put a noose around the throat of time
'Twas thus I lived, skin to skin with the earth,
Quite Citadel! Kings and Queens have sate
Who would not hail thee, backward edifice?
Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of light at the window,
begin to the roar of summoning traffic
all along the Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in the dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
and arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and the future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces,
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.
Brendan Kennelly
JIMMY NOLAN
Jimmy Nolan, grocer, typed my name,
The printed word, just like it was in books;
Back then, the printed word was fame,
I'd hold it up and look, and look, and look.
He took photos, too, of weddings around here,
Anything to earn an honest bob
(A wooden leg, his walk a little queer),
He'd show the snaps to Mam- another job
Well done, he courted praise ('twas all he sought);
He wrote the local Notes and that was power,
He made the news from stories that were brought
By locals who would purchase tea and flour.
He typed us up, and every week we'd scan,
Our inch of glory in The Kerryman.
Gabriel Fitzmaurice
(Lines written at the Ivy Bridge, Renagowen,
Lyreacrompane, to commemorate Dan Paddy Andy O'Sullivan,
last of the great matchmakers. 18 May 1982)
The beaded dews did the field attire
And the old, grey world was turned to fire
In the month of May in the morning.
Out of the bowers by the bright sun lit
Lark and linnet and the long-tailed tit
And every other that ever did flit
Sang loud of the suns adorning.
Sang from the love of The newborn day,
Sang from the blossoming buds of May,
And sang for the rude and randy.
Sang for a soul unsung, unloved,
Sang for a spirit too long reproved,
As over the Ivy Bridge he roved,
To the Land of Dan Paddy Andy
Saying come away to the promised land,
For I know a dame wants a ring in her hand
And for bells in her ear to be ringing.
Oh blessed the land that simmering hour,
Blossoms bursting on every bower,
Hedgerows white with the thorn in flower,
And the whole world sweetly singing.
There waited a bountiful, beautiful maid,
A mystical, madrigal, marrying maid,
The shadows and dark shades scorning.
And as the blazing sun climbed higher,
They roamed through the blossoming land of Lyre,
And the songbirds sang in a colossal choir,
When he kissed his love in the morning.
John B. Keane
THE WORD ON THE WIND
Tá againn, a dúradar,
cár chaithis an samhradh, a dúradar,
thíos i mBun an Tábhairne, a dúradar,
cad a dheinis gach lá, a dúradar,
chuais ar an dtráigh, a dúradar,
níor chuais ag snámh, a dúradar.
Canathaobh nar chuais ag snámh?
Mar bhí sé rófhuar, a dúradar,
do do chnámha atá imithe gan mhaith, a dúradar,
bothar age samhnas nó age teaspach gan dúchas,
gur deacair dhuit é a iompar, a dúradar.
where you spent the summer, they said,
down in Crosshaven, they said
what you did every day.
You went down to the beach, they said,
but you didn't go swimming, did you?
No, you didn't go swimming, and why?
Because it was too cold, they said.
It froze you to the marrow, they said.
Oh your bones have gone soft, they said.
You just couldn't handle that easy life,
you and your loose living ways, they said.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
from BALLADS OF A BOGMAN
I am Kerry like my mother before me,
And my mother's mother and her man.
Now I sit on an office stool remembering.
And the memory of them like a fan
Soothes the embers into flame.
I am Kerry and proud of my name.
That shoulder the stars out of the sky.
And about the wasp-yellow fields
And the strands where the help-streamers lie
Where soft as lovers' Gaelic, the rain falls,
Sweeping into silver the lacy mountain walls.
And, leaning backward ino legend, spoke
Of doings old before quills inked history.
I saw dark heroes fighting in the smoke,
Diarmuid dead inside his Iveragh cave.
And Deidre caoining upon Naoise's grave.
And every wrinkle held a thousand tales
Of Finn and Oscar and Conawn Maol,
And sea-proud Niall whose conquering sails,
Raiding France for slaves and wine,
Brought Patrick to mind Milchu's swine.
And choked the passing of hobnailed years,
And stayed young always, shouting in the hills
where life held only fairy years.
When I was young my feet were bare
But I drove the cattle to the fair.
Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows,
Watching the wild geese making black wedges
By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows
Their voices come on ever little wind
Whispering across the half-door of the mind,
For always I am Kerry....
Edward Sigerson Clifford
HOMAGE TO MARCEL PROUST
The sea gleamed deep blue in the sunlight,
Through the different greens of the trees.
And the talk was of singing.
My mother, dressed in black, recalled a bright image from a song,
Those endearing young charms,
Miss Holly, waring heliotrope, had a sad line,
The waves are still singing to the shore.
Then, as we came out of the edge of the wood,
The island lay dreaming in the sun across the bridge,
Even the white coastguard station had gone quietly to sleep
- it was Sunday
A chain on a ship at the pier
Rattled to silence,
Cries of children, playing, sounded faintly,
and, musically, somewhere,
A young sailor of the island-
He was tall
And slim
And curled, to the moustaches,
And he wore ear-rings
But often he was too ill to be at sea-
Was singing,
Maid of Athens, ere we part....
Looking suddenly like a goddess
Miss Holly said, half smiling,
'Listen....'
And we stopped
In the sunlight
Listening...
The young sailor is dead now.
Miss Holly also is dead
and Byron...
Home they've gone
And the waves are still singing.
Thomas MacGreevy
SONNET TO A LAVATORY
Temple of Seclusion! Aptly set apart
To house the toilet needs. Repository
Where bodily wants are eased and the heart
Feels restful, too, in thy sweet privacy.
Thou art the throne room of soliloquy
Where each lone patron, with no special art,
Relaxes for expulsion, setting free
Imprisoned waste and the unmuffled fart.
Within thee, glad to leave their votive gift
(So democratic for their Royal state)
And grateful for kind nature's daily shift.
Cloister for brief retirement and for peace.Bob Boland 1888-1995