THE BACKWARD LOOK
( for D.B. )

the blackbird
leaves me a note
pinned to the sky

that blue
beyond
blue

the tide
of the moment
turning turning

Time
like apple blossom
falling through my mind

the little boy
unable to believe
that this day is not

made of forever
and only
now

I walk back
through my self
to unpin the note

the blackbird wrote
with his voice
still pinned

to that
self same
sky

the blue so still
beyond
even its self

I, at last, able to read
the birds words
its language a secret

no longer to me
"I  sing..."  it says  "...I sing
because all this must die!"

"I sing the moment's tide
its turning
always turning!"

It's throat
full of song
glorying in being

alive for this
one eternal
moment


*

I was reading Frank O'Connor's series of lectures on early Irish poetry ( THE BACKWARD LOOK )and listening to both Bowie's newest and an old favourite of mine LODGER. I was at the start of FANTASTIC VOYAGE when the seemingly impossible news of his death trickled through and I went to BBC to confirm that...it was not so. It was so.

A moment ago he had been singing( as he had been singing for me all these years ):

"In the event
that this fantastic voyage
Should turn to erosion
and we never get old
Remember it's true, dignity is valuable
But our lives are valuable too"

I was also reading this 4 line fragment from the 9th century :

"There is one
   I would wish to see again,
And give the golden world to win -
    All, all, though all were vain."

"Fil duine
     Frismbad buide lemm díuterc
Ara tabrainn in mbith mbuide
     Uile, uile, cid díupert."

And  so I wrote him this little poem....THE BACKWARD LOOK.