Falling Apples (2 page)

The far distant mountains before me;

Like a train from a tunnel emerging

I have returned to the lap of creation.

Using pints for punctuation,

Farming friends around him,

Holding earthy conversations:

Man to man discussions

On someone’s lock of cattle

Or a lovely score of lambs.

Turning his back to the bar,

Measuring his every step,

He employs a walking stick

To aid his disappearance;

Exiting black swing doors,

Writing off another night.

In good humour going home,

Unconscious of the loneliness

Of the silent sleeping village,

He sits into my waiting car

And we leave the streetlamps

To the phantoms of the night.

These are the dark days of the winter, short and stormy;

The wind and the driving rain rebuff the flowerless furze.

The sycamore and the beech that were so fair out there

Stand bleakly staring into space, uncertain of their fate.

And I am thinking of the swans in the bog of Ballinagare.

They have never left my mind, come rain or come shine,

Ever since three cygnets grey swooped above my head,

Over the rusty metal bridge that spanned the broad river.

All three flew low and wide around and then they landed

Downstream with muffled whoops of cygnet swan delight;

Heads held in the air, graceful as the Viking ships at sea;

They were close to me where I was the undercover man.

My water skiers with loud whirring of their musical wings

Skimmed along the surface of the river to westwards fly

To their chosen spot where they could swim alone, apart;

At that I felt a touch of loss to think of mine gone far away.

But one evening from the road I saw them all assembled,

All a gaggle in a green bog field beside the flowing river;

Seeing five more fly in to land the rest below paraded,

Their chanting windpipes all in tune in a place deserted.

Self-contained in self drive cars:

Families, my daughter’s and my own,

In a blue Focus and a light blue Fiesta,

Driving always in formation-

Our sights were set on Milford Sound.

We stopped at times by chasms.

Stunned by haloed mountain peaks;

Boundless acres of countless sheep.

Eating at a roadhouse at a cross

Where the chimney with its log fire

Filled us with New Zealand lore.

Now the evening’s endless mountains

Throw the cloak of twilight round us.

Daughters in exile in Australia

Travel with us on the road tonight;

So far, so long, now all together,

Hemispheres had found each other.

The warm balm of the velvet breeze

Wafts around the bungalow gable

By the sheltering sycamore trees,

Caressing my face at the table.

Soft stepping, white bibbed and black,

The cat settles down in the sun

And on the leaves he lays on his back,

Russet bed by the autumn spun.

The simple song of the robin red,

Plain chant of the solo singer;

Stepladder up to the hedge ahead,

Standing by for a tasty trimmer.

Black and white and quick and low,

Magpies cruise with crackling chatter;

The cars gone by on the road below

Restoring the peace that they shatter.

A Painted Lady butterfly

Delays delicately nearby,

Her freshness never old.

Wings of words unspoken,

I’m weightless in her space.

Then a ripe red apple falls

With a faint silent sob,

Soft trapping me in sunshine

In the orchard by the stream.

At last I have to walk away

But I leave my pain behind me

Where quietly clamour now

The sniping stinging wasps.

In South Kerry from a narrow mountain road

That hung above the farmsteads by the sea

I saw a cattle run and heard the cuckoo call:

A sudden motion towards the surging ocean

And a voice saying it’s summer time again.

There were roadworks at Coomakista Pass

Making wide the wayward route to Waterville:

Giant kango hammers cracking roadside rock

At Caherdaniel; machines to move mountains.

In the Golden Cove behind the Sneem Hotel

Six strong oarsmen dipped their oars as one,

Striking the evening silence with an even beat

As slowly a lonesome swan took centre stage,

Cruising at a steady pace on waters of ebony.

His characters all came alive,

Stepping on the stage of time:

The playwright and the poet,

Words flowing like good wine.

On the mall of the main street

His statue stands forever,

Cap in hand and in his stride-

A man for walking by the river.

Passing the Apollo of her dreams

His widow softly touched him then,

Knowing that unseen angels

Were taking gentle care of him.

Johnny our postman flew off on his bike

Across the bridge on the river low down;

As alive as a hare just sprung from his lair,

He was primed up for doing his rounds.

As merry a postman as ever I have seen

Who possessed the great gift of the gab,

Though we lived at the end of his daily run

Yet he’d still be as fresh and as full of fun

As when he threw his bag up on his back

At the door of his little thatched cottage,

That was perched on the side of the street-

The main road that ran through the village.

He’d whistle and sing as if he were king

And his heart was so light on his bicycle;

He’d sit up like he owned half of Ireland.

At the time there were men in their fields

Who worked with ponies and horses.

They’d all say “The postman! ” then wave

And exchange a few words on the weather;

If he had his way it wouldn’t rain ever.

All the news still unread in his satchel,

As he pedalled and freewheeled ahead,

Would not be as bad as anyone thought.

He hoped for them all ’t would be good.

Our laughing cavalier, down off his bike,

Would half dance in our path to the door,

Deliver the mail to my mother awaiting

Then maybe he’d waltz ’round the foor.

As he talked he would look at you straight

And you saw that his eyes were so brown,

Filled with laughter and lovable roguery-

He helped you forget the day’s drudgery.

There is something in the setting sun

That speaks to me of death and darkness

As the dying moments of another day

Are suffused with a splash of crimson.

Now the surface of the Feale turns red

By Martin Daly’s low lying river fields,

Near the large crucifix at Convent Cross.

It was on the eve of Valentine

In the year of ninety eight

That the Master’s name so resonant

Was marked absent on the slate;

So delicate were the daffodils

After days of winter strife

When the soul of Bryan Mac Mahon

Went through the Gap of Life.

So silent now the river Feale,

They had shared the sun together,

For the Master of all masters

Has called Bryan to Him forever;

Our nation maker is close to God

Whose gifts he’ll hand us down:

Like words to lips and songs to sing

In his native Kerry town.

Away he’ll send on flights of doves

Through heaven’s open door

His love by Gort a’Ghleanna

In the vale of Knockanure;

He was the master and the writer

Whose gifts he left behind:

Like pride to last in his native place

And his books to feed the mind.

He loved the Fleadh’s homecoming

And the folk who travelled far

To sing and dance in the sunny Square

Or to play in any bar;

He’d always watch the marching bands

As they passed with a great hurrah!

He’d stand at his door in the evening sun

To watch the mardi gras.

Our footpaths miss his noble steps:

He was a father to the town;

His greeting marked you present-

“Conas tán tú? Tán tú ann! ”

So when you’re walking down the street

Know that we’ve only got today

And sometimes stop and chat awhile

For that was Bryan’s way.

In St.Galmier by the River Rhone,

With its mineral waters of renown,

In an atelier you’ll see a soufeur.

The furnace heat is orange bright,

So hot it has to be before he can

With taps and turns on his bench

Mould the sand on a magic wand

To any form in the master’s mind.

On the tip of the rod a body round

Builds on its stem to form the base

Of the final glass and its equilibrium.

All circles run round the rod’s end;

With his wrist he twists and twirls.

For him it spins into a vase of blue,

Snipped slim like a slender candle:

With its pouting lips and its lily look

It stands up proud of its wily master.

I see him as the signalman

On the unseen tracks of time:

A family priest for all of us-

As we travel down the line.

Railway stations made him blue

When young and leaving home-

I wonder if it was his Signalman

That for so long kept him going?

He taught the boys of Wexford

By the Barrow in New Ross

And at a later time the Déise lads

In Dungarvan’s lovely town;

A chaplin in Dublin’s Liberties,

Now in Limerick nearer home;

The road that led to his priesthood

Had earlier started off in Rome.

In his vestments with a bell of brass

Before the quarter past eleven mass,

Ringing out “Come all ye within”

To that little hospital Chapel

That always has been dear to him.

St. Augustine’s “Lord we are restless

Until we rest with Thee”

He quoted freely at his Golden Jubilee.

He has always been our signalman

Along the unseen tracks of time:

A family priest for everyone

As we are travelling down the line.

Tom Moon as he sat in our kitchen some days

Turned the talk into song and before very long

He’d start pacing the floor from table to door,

Look into the mirror used for Saturday shaving,

Tilt back his hat and in a voice that was deep

Sing loud with a chorus a love song sonorous;

Alas at the end of the story of loving her dearly

They ‘parted forever on the banks of the Lee.’

Later on in his life he worked in the forestry

And he lived down at the foot of the mountain;

How happy he was one day when I called to him

And he got his young daughter to dance for us.

While we drank a few bottles of stout

He sang from his heart of this beautiful lady

In the wonderful words of her lover lamenting:

Looking at her picture he’d hung on the wall

He gazed at her face and thought that if only

She was really alive and holding his hand

Like the time they were two lovers together.

Though dead and gone I think of his songs:

I hear his musical voice full of merriment.

Now I often sing too as he himself used to do

For it makes our hearts beat that much better.

Join in yourself and you’ll feel the same joy

For Tom Moon in his day was a minstrel boy.

“Peig my dear, no, I won’t have tea;

” To look at you there in your armchair,

Your hair so white in the window light,

Is good enough for me you see;

You say your beads you have said-

For the road ahead.

You’re on decade nine of your dream

Near Coolnaleen, where falls a stream

From Sliabh Chathail on high,

Flowing into the Feale that’s nearby.

Your Tanavalla forever

Looking down to the river;

In the cot that’s your own

By the fireside alone,

Widowed but merry-

“You’ll have whiskey or sherry, ”

“It’s not often you call-

I’ll tell no one at all”

“I have had the hedge cut,” she said,

“And the turf’s in the shed.”

“My son Mike will be home

In the fall of the year;

My daughter Noreen is living so near,

We’re over and back

Every day of the year; ”

“To Jo’s I’d go, up the hill long ago,

Past Johnny’s I’d climb-

One step at a time;

Up the Dale Road to me

Came my dear friend Mary.”