“Im Quell deiner Augen

erwürgt ein Gehenkter den Strang.”
Paul Celan

Thursday, March 28, 2024

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.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

THE DRUNK-FOX


Burning out of the gorse and now sentinel
at a gate of gold where furze, scrubs
and willows grow, and poised on the heath
in the midday marsh by fern and emerald gray,
his redness flexes its crystal lens
and stares through beads of cobalt
down the dew-decked lane.

What den flushed him out, strained
russet out of auburn, and put him down
amid the speckled shadows where broom
and heather fleck sedge and brush
till they sneeze seeds and polyps of musk —
thistles colonize the sweet vernal grass
with spots of pignut and meadow eyebright?

He sees all, the marshy rush and cuckoo flower,
the bilberries bursting at their seams,
and bluebells tolling softly on the mossy margins,
and he can sniff the scent off sage and ragwort,
hear the dog violets bark, and feel the urge to ramble
in the brambles before he insinuates himself
paw by snout into the tight-fitting foxglove.


Sunday, January 14, 2024

SHIP OF FOOLS


Our ship of earth is destined
to run aground, but not
on cliffs of ice, or stone, or land, 
but on the rocks of ourselves—

We have renamed our ship 
the RMS Titanic, but a maiden 
voyage this is certainly not— 
We have navigated these seas

since time immemorial, setting 
our terminal course to nowhere, 
captained by lunacy and hate, 
and mutinous from the start—

We’ve carried our cargoes too of war, 
famine, scurvy, slavery, and greed 
from port to port without end,
and every time we recklessly sink,

we are found again and salvaged again 
from the unfathomable deeps of ourselves— 
Our liner will endure unsinkable,
only the passengers and crew can drown.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

BEDE’S BIRD


In my sixtieth year I finally awoke
and found myself lost and alone 
at the edge of a dark forest—

I know there is a light in there 
that is not some residual glow 
of my synapses or senses dying—

I know it is you my love, my savior, 
my last stay against the darkness, 
and I know that light is your love

and your faith that will never cede— 
Hold on a bit longer, dearest one, 
for I will find my way back to you.

I will enter the dark forest of myself, 
and altering Bede’s parable will arrive 
from the storms within to you without.

Sunday, December 3, 2023

HOMELESS


Each of you was a guy rope 
fixing us to earth and tribe, 
but now those ropes are cut, 
and our tent is a rag in wind. 

A storm has taken our rag 
as it were a sail and whipped it 
out to sea, where it rides the rain 
and wind like a broken wing.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

SILENT NIGHT


It is nearly impossible to comprehend or process the death of one’s mother. Mine had the most reliable and advanced moral compass of anyone I have ever known. As mother to a dozen children and wife to a somewhat maverick husband, whose fecklessness often needed tender governance, she developed diplomatic skills that would make the best global diplomats look like amateurs. 

We are facing into Christmas without her, and are reminded by the stacks of gifts she purchased and stored before she died, that the Yuletide was one of her favorite times of year, precisely because it was the family occasion. But what will Christmas be without mother? Another ‘Silent Night’, of sorts:

Silent Night

~For Mother~

This year without you will end 
in snow and shadows,
prayers like icicles will fall across 
our grief and cut it raw.

We will seek you in the carols, 
but will find only silence,
our tears thawing and flowing, 
and absence like a dead end,

like a dark empty road 
between fields under trees, 
where a lone cry can die 
into the dead of night.

This year without you will end 
with homecomings, headlights 
cleaving sylvan shadows,
and your laughter lost between.

Sunday, November 26, 2023

HOGMANAY


The smoke of the Juniper closes 
the year, we pray for cladding, 
and wear ash to heal 
our bones –   

Berries distil into oil and wine, 
our remedy for loss, our cure 
for white after blue 
bleeds gold –   

Bonsai roots pruned into shape 
lose vigor in confinement, 
though the fruit is still ample, 
though the graft has style.