CONTAGION

EVENING EXPRESSIONS

REQUIEM - FOR MOTHER

AN DALL SA STUDIO

This is one of my favorite schoolbook poems, 'An Dall Sa Studio', or 'The Blind Man in the Studio', by Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916 - 1977), one of Ireland's finest Irish language poets.

MARGARET 'ENA' GRIFFIN - (August 6th, 1935 - October 30th, 2023)

Our beautiful mother died peacefully at home on October 30th. She died on the eve of Halloween, itself the eve of All Saints Day. 22 of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren were around her bedside when she took her final breath. It seems surreal and unreal the weight of this sadness and grief, and my family knows we will never comes to terms with our loss, all we can do from now on is cope, live as best we can, and pay forward the extraordinary compassion, generosity, kindness, and love our mother showed to everyone. She belonged to Ireland's greatest generation, the ones who built our nation directly after independence and centuries of oppression. Herself and my father protected their 12 children from all external, hostile forces that so savagely undid many families on our small island home. Her dedication to family was legendary, and her table was the symbol of her infinite generosity and love -- My poem 'Our Table' references mother's generosity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&si=nynrPe5Aj3GG28hD&v=nr1GbV4BGqo&feq-ture=youtu.be

It is impossible to pay proper tribute to a lady of such depth and importance as my mother, but I have been trying in the only way I know how, by dedicating elegies to her. This one 'Finis' is self-explanatory:

Finis

 

Let us make this last crossing together,

down the dark boreens of the dead,

and up past the light’s pale blue line

to where the migratory ghost bird sings,

let us listen together above the wastes

for the beloved voices that are now gone,

all those fading echoes we still cling to 

as the terminal darkness closes round,

let us hold hands this last time, you

and I, before the everlasting sky dims

and wraps its mummy cloths about us, 

before the tomb’s womb enshrouds us,

and we go dumb here once and for all.

Let us be done with it. look, our terminus

is just up ahead, a shade is waving us in.

 

OUR TABLE

 

~For Mother~

Your table bore the bread of the years, 

and divided it amongst our congregated selves. 

Its grains and its cuts, its grooves, and stains

are the emblems of our appetites and good cheer, 

our joys and now our aging, and when it gathered 

us together and collected all our stories,

it made a banquet of remembrance.

Because of you, it is the fulcrum at our center,

our pivot of gravity, our Tabula Rasa

upon which is written the biography

of all our days, it is the tablet

of our broken and unbroken ways,

the battleground of all our wars,

and the place we come to sign

each peace treaty and bitter ceasefire.

We have laid the maps of ourselves

on this very table and planned our moves

and countermoves, we have brought

our allies here, our friends, and lovers, even

our foes, and we have celebrated

the blessing of all who have come.

It has been our bridge as well as the gulf

between us, the earth as well as the harvest

of all the memories we have sown,

and it wears the relics of each feast

and festival, it conjures colors, sounds,

aromas, and tastes out of silence and absence, 

laughter hangs above it like the echoes

of our lost years, and the world's fare

has filled it up, weighed it down,

and emptied it again at the close of day,

it knows the world's woes, and ours,

it has shouldered the weight of the world,

and has held our hands through

the darkest trials of our loves and fears,

the sweet and sour grapes of our passage

have whet its appetite and stained its face,

but the table endures and binds us

one to one, each to all, and all to you, dear mother.

BOOK LAUNCH ~ FEBRUARY 3RD 2023 ~ LIBRARY ~ EXCEL THEATRE, TIPPERARY TOWN

I would like to thank my sister, the extraordinary poet, Eleanor Hooker, author of 3 acclaimed books, for organizing the launch of Erosions, which took place on Friday night in the Excel Theatre in Tipperary Town, our hometown. The event was attended by our family and dear friends and was a special evening for all of us.

Catherine Fogarty and Majella Hickey (the librarians) kindly and graciously agreed to stay long after hours to host the reading. They were generous and supportive throughout and both are owed special thanks. 

I would also like to thank my brother Olly for filming and photographing the evening, my sisters Alice & Margaret for catering the event, and my niece Lisa for her artful confectionaries. Some of Olly's photos are inserted below.