THE MAKER OF MAPS

throw the sheet over her
start tracing her contours
"I'm making a life size map of you!"

it has to be a scale of 1:1
the map
creases with laughter

after we hang this
map of you upon the wall
"Mapmaking tickles!" she tells me

"Well...time for the real thing!"
I consult the map
set out to explore you

my fingers
those brave mountaineers
scale your left breast

ahhh this view of you
worth the climb
my fingers rest

and so I begin the descent
the map telling me
where to go

wєℓ¢Θмє

There was a knock
on the door.

I opened it.

The river stood there
dripping all over

the welcome mat.

It had dragged along
birds...trees...bits of sky

an old worn summer.

"Hi...!" it rippled
". . .remember me?"

"Sure..." I said

"You said you would never forget me!"

"How could I?" I said

It grinned
like that summer all over again.

"Come in...come in!" I said

It hung up the trees and sky
on the hat rack.

It sat in the bath
talking of this 'n' that.

"Wow..!" I thought
still listening to the river

talk of all the times
we'd spent together.

Memory sure does play
some funny tricks

on the mind.

"Well..." it said
"I guess I better be going!"

It put back on the trees and birds
wore the sky at a jaunty angle.

"You haven't changed a bit!" I said
kissing it goodbye.

"You've got old..." it smiled
"...so very very old!"

I laughed.
"I'm not that little boy I was!"

It wished me well.

The door closed.

Its footsteps
lost in time.

I was missing it
already.

*

This is the river and song of my childhood. The Own na Buidhe ran at the bottom of my uncle's field so it was a real thing to me as well as part of this beautiful song that I cherished. And the song had my name in it!

"When Donal swore, aye o'er and o'er..."

My sister Junie used to sing it to me as we lay in the field and the river looked up at us shy with the mention of its name.
This is the river that comes to visit me! Not just any old river but. . .
my river...my song...my name!

"When Donal swore, aye o'er and o'er. . ."

TOUCHING SUMMER

the world is caught
in net curtains
summer struggles to free itself

she wants to touch
summer for the last time
the net curtains go quiet

she sees her self
as a child
with a big big grin

a hairy gooseberry
like a translucent marble
that the sun hides in

she asks her self
what they used to call them
"Goosegogs!" her self tells her

the goosegog bursts
upon her tiny tongue
she both likes it and doesn't

she winces as
the cancer bites
the day falls from her hands

she leaves summer behind
for the last time
the window full of night

SHARING WING BIRDS

A moon
the colour of sorrow.

Rain falling
like regret.

The memory
of your beauty

awakened by
the music

tiptoes on moonlit feet
slowly silently

across the moon coloured
lawn.

A cat
(immune to human emotion)yawns

silhouetted against
an Autumn moon.

He listens
to our human words

more out of boredom
than anything else

as if we were characters
in a play

enacting words that will be
forever spoken:

“Let us be sharing-wing-birds
...that thing of legend...

with only one eye
only one wing

only by sharing wings
can we fly! ”

Chiselled into
a night gone by

the words remain
engraved upon the air.

The cat wonders
how do humans do that

...& why?
He pads quietly

through  and
through the words

the memory of us
bristling his fur.

Dearest. . . .


                I know you know the old adage that
you can’t take it with you when you go but

I have only two treasures

ephemeral  as they may be
the feel of your hand in mind
the touch of your mind

your breath upon my cheek
the kiss about to be

I’ll outwit death as yet  steal them with my dying breath.

See the machinery of death unfurl within me
the perfection of its final stop -  a thing of beauty.

Now: in a future. . .you

lie sleeping sunlight warm upon your face
(I, no heavy handed ghost)

leave only a feeling of intense comfort

that makes you smile without the knowing why. . .

NEVER SO ALONE AS HERE
(in memory of my mother Ita)

a night
scattered with stars
each star so clear

in its perfect
isolation
you feel as if you are

about to pluck it
from its position
examine it

put it
exactly
back

watch as time & the world
come apart
(watch as neither match)  

each minute
like a bead of prayer
fumbled through fingers

in its litany of despair
a rosary of
hopelessness

the back of her hand
resting in the palm of mine
stupidly the thought

crossing my mind
“She made
this hand...”

and now she searches
for her dying
sees it reflected

in our faces

our grief her mirror
each star
a tear

in the perfection
of its isolation
never so alone


as here as now
the Milky Way
spilt across the sky

AN ORDINARY DAY IN 1863

from out of the silence
a bell's voice
steps out on the air

shattering the frozen blue
of a sky cluttered with
the shriek of seagulls

a tiny church
packed to the brim
with humans singing hymns

the dead talking
to themselves
all the time

the living
never listening to
what they have to say

praising this
the newest
of days

a morning
opening to
the future

a leaf falling
on a broken grave
a lichen-eaten name

two aliens
observing all
as it happens

discovering
and quoting
Shakespeare to each other

"Lord
what fools
these mortals be!"