Falling Apples (6 page)

Crossing over the bridge the boy put on his old shoes

To walk on the tar road down to the old schoolhouse.

This year’s maize turns green to yellow,

Ripening by the hour in Healy’s fields:

Corn with a continental look,

Growing near the grotto in Killocrim;

Showing off its kilt of summer sheen

To your left and to your right;

Waving acres reaching to the river Feale

Where philosophical fishermen unwind.

Bedecked with fans of ferns and little purple flowers,

Glad earth if you but could raise your lips to mine

And someway sling your leafy arms around my neck

I would lay with you and forever be your nature lover.

On the road that tops the hill and leads to Coolnaleen

We scent the summer hedgerows in the heat of day,

Remarking all the milestones like a low strong oak

Or gentle smooth young beeches and the wily ash.

Yellow furze and flagger by a hidden stream below;

Dashes of red roses and little strawberries ripening-

From the gateways fields are shaven from the baling,

Charolais as well within and the mountains far away.

Grey heron on black water,

Standing deadly still on stones;

In midstream a river shadow.

Ceist agam orm féin:

Ó chrann atá lom

Cad é an síor gearán

Sa choill atá láimh liom?

An éan atá ann?

Ní fheicim aon éan-

Ní éan ar an gcrann.

Cuirim cluas orm fein,

Ag féachaint in airde,

Is aithním an fhuaim uaim

Ar deireadh mar ghíoscán:

Fuinseoig ag caoineadh,

Ina luascán ag gaotha,

Ag fulaingt mar dhuine.

What’s that?

That sound from the wood!

Does that bare tree complain a lot?

It does not!

It cannot be.

Is it the call of a bird?

It might maybe.

But high on its boughs

I can’t see a thing:

Not a sign I see.

I listen in, all ears,

And found out now

That the sound

That had puzzled me

Came after all

From the tall old ash tree,

Creaking in pain,

In vain to complain

Of the way that the wind

Blows to bow and to bend it.

A reminder to me

That the suffering of man

Sounds so much the same

In everything but name.

By the last rays of the winter sun

I seem to smell the signs of spring.

Those ewes we’d bring

Into the shelter of this lofty barn,

Its back turned against the gales,

Clean straw beds among the bales.

Young lambs learn quick to stand,

To find the ewes that fuss around

And knock them off to stand again

On spindly legs like drunken men.

I remember all these happy things

And later saw them dance in rings.

The slow call of a crow outside

Seems to echo back to childhood-

To a sloping sunburnt hill

In the land of limestone leachtáns

And grey stone walls I’ll always love;

Where we saved the hay together,

Often watching out for rain

And hurrying if we felt a drop or two-

Resting only when my mother came

With tea and rhubarb tart at four o’clock.

My father smoked his pipe contentedly,

Blessed himself and spat on his palms;

Resuming play we both made hay

And trimmed and tied each work of art.

With the brown pony we all called Dan,

My brother Mike, sunburned and strong,

Gathering in the hay with a tumble rake.

A curlew calls mysteriously-

Drawing back the veil of night,

Reminding me of Bailemhóinín

And the Carheen river quietly flowing

From Lios an Fhíona,

Draining the low black bogland,

Scenting sweet with furze and heather.

I can see afar those flowing fields

Sloping down from old stone walls

To that deep and embedded dip-

Cupping the presence of the pond

For thirsty cows and cattle around.

Rush and reed hide water hens;

Landing place for goose and duck,

And its swans unexpectedly return

In peace as straying memories do.

Spell bound pond in Tír na nÓg,

Treasury of young dreams of love;

Frost its face had frozen over-

Our sliding place in the setting sun.

In a traffic jam and I can see

Daffodils bedeck the ditches,

Benches in a people’s park.

Sideways there is a swamp

Where in the water preening

Stands a swan unperturbed.

A proud heron flies up above:

Once a tall and lordly one

Upheld its native landing rights,

Strutting around the grass

Within a nearby roundabout,

Reclaiming its own wetland.

As my patience in the tailback

Further ticks away from me

A brazen ambulance overtakes

This queue of cars and breaks

With flashing lights of blue

The traffic rules to save a life

By Limerick’s Shannonside

Across The Whistling Bridge.

I’d reached a clearing in the wood

And there I think I met Wordsworth:

As happy as he was by ‘sylvan Wye’

When first I lived within his poems

And often walked with him in step.

The poet who told us in his lines

Of his God in nature, written above

His ‘Tintern Abbey’I read and loved

And visited in later life in sunshine:

A ruins to remember for its peace.

Rustling the ditch’s foral skirt for strawberries:

Red and wild, elusive little rubies of delight,

Hidden as they hang, no bigger than a haw-

Vying with the velvet bells of purple foxgloves,

Filling the colour void and ringing out the days

Of violets fading in the shady wood unseen;

Overlooked by ferns in unfurled flags of green.

Du balcon de ma chambre en haut,

Un matin à Medugorje d’or doux

La vallée s’est baignée au soleil levant,

Les coqs des villages ensemble exultants.

Dehors au coin du petit potager la bas

La fumée monte d’un feu aux cieux,

Mais qu’est-ce qu’ils font si tôt avec

Les tuyaus dans le tonneau d’eau?

On dit ici qu’il y a des petites distilleries

Qu’ils font du Schnapps, bonne à boire:

Ces gens choisis de nôtre Mère

Dans ce lieu bénit entre ciel et terre.

Vicka la visionnaire de la Vierge Marie,

De la voix débordée de la joie d’esprit;

Pendant qu’ elle nous de l’abri parlait

La pluie en Bosnie sur la foule tombait.

Jacov modestement de ses visions parlait:

“Il n’y a aucun artiste pour décrire sa beauté;

Les beaux yeux sont bénis d’amour infini

Et sa voix maternelle est une vraie mélodie.”

Les jeunes toxicomanes en santé libérés

Guidaient les pèlerins au Dome foulé-

C’est l’heure de l’apparition pour Mirjana,

Sa réunion sacrée avec la Reine de la Paix.

Le démon qui criait dans le corps d’une fille,

Vert de peur de la présence de Marie,

Il se tu d’aboyer quand Elle pris la parole;

Le soleil a dansé—un disque bleu doré.

Dieu et son peuple à Podbrodo en harmonie;

Les pèlerins se rassemblent au pied de la Croix.

Descendant enjoué à la messe matinale

Les cloches au loin sonnent très musicales.

Le parfum de roses-de Sa présence si douce

Senti au chapelet à St. Jacques le soir;

Le choeur chante en croate un fervent cantique,

A l’ouest au soleil—une manifestation mystique.

Ecouter les grillons et les chiens de ce quartier,

Regarder la lune, la gardienne de la nuit;

Si le monde un jour change et choisit la paix

Bien sûr on commence à Medugorje.

I breathe from my upstairs bedroom balcony

The air of a soft golden morning in symphony:

The crowing of cocks for Medugorje’s new dawn,

In the valley so silent in the heat of the sun.

Outside in the garden, in the corner there,

Smoke from a fire incensing the air;

Those men walking around and I wonder why

There’s pipes from the barrel that’s standing close by.

Some speak of mini distilleries here,

Of spirits called Schnapps, your life to cheer,

And the chosen people of the Virgin Mother

In the days of war lived in peace with each other.

Vicka the visionary of the Holy Queen,

Whose joy was truly a sight to be seen,

Stood by her door her story to tell

As the rain on our Bosnian brollies fell.

Jacov spoke of Her beauty so quietly:

“To be able to paint Her was highly unlikely;

Her heavenly eyes are best described blest;

Her voice is a melody,” with love he confessed.

Liberated young addicts of the Cenacolo Home

Directing us all who had come to their Dome;

They usher in Mirjana , very soon to be given

A message of peace from the Queen of Heaven.

Loud crying in fear from a girl possessed

At the coming of Mary, for the demon no rest.

His barking so evil stamped out by Her glory;

The gilded blue disc of the sun told the story.

God and his people on Podbrodo in harmony;

Around the White Cross the feeling was heavenly;

Descending fulfilled to the mass in the morning

The bells from afar were musically charming.

The stray scent of roses at the Rosary was stunning

In the Church of St. James at the time of Her coming ;

The Croatian hymns were fervent and constant

And the sun in the west was now a gold monstrance.

The crickets sing on between the hills stark

As the full moon is guarding the night from the dark;

If the world is to change and have peace in its heart

Medugorje is the place where we’ll make a new start.

They are a people quiet and deep,

The Latvians: here in Riga

They remember Ninety One-

The year the Russians left.

In the centre of Boulevard Brivibas

At the monument they call Milda

Two soldiers guard with honour

The freedom of a young Republic.

On the Duagava in a Bateau-Mouche

Upon its riverbanks I saw from me

This city noted for its noveau art:

Alberta Street was Eizenstein’s idea.

The Reval Hotel top reveals

Weather cocks on timeworn churches;

The fine cathedral’s five cupolas

Are gleaming gold as the sun sets.

Their Cardinal in his purple cap

On the altar steps for mid-day mass;

The silent Luthern pews for prayer,

Greek Orthodox weddings in pairs.

By our restaurant in Doma Square

Smoothly pass the Cadillac cars,

Bouncing along the cobblestones;

A happy girl goes home with flowers.

Maroon and white clad hurler,

Galway’s hero so swift and strong;

‘John Connolly is on’

They gladly shouted,

The long awaiting sideline throng;

From the dressing room he’s running,

Pulling low and swinging high

In the hunt for Galway glory

On a summer’s eve in Athenry.

The wild creatures of the bog land

At midnight time of gentle sleep

All curled up in their slumbers

In furze bush and rush and reed

Had to flee in frightened furry

From a sudden racing raging fire.

Each furze in turn first crackled

Then it blazed high into the sky,

Lifting off the cloak of darkness

Where I look down from the hill,

Overflowing shining light on me.

Our songbirds sleeping silenced

And the magic of that cuckoo’s call

I heard I’ll hear no more I fear.

Blue lights flash and sirens wail

On winding roads to this inferno.

Tonight our backroom bedroom

Is lit by burning bog land light

But tomorrow no furze in bloom

For me; only burnt black I’ll see.

We thought the same on the shimmering sand,

By the towering cliffs with their tufts of green,

That here the time and the place was at hand

On a Sunday to savour the pleasure of being.

The passionate tide was out past the Point-

That Arc de Triomphe at the cliff’s high head;

The playful waves our fears did anoint:

‘To be or not to be’ that’s what Hamlet said.

Deep and black through the dark of the caves

Ran a ruthless river released by the sea,

Relentlessly entering the hall of Hades

Where no one would want ever to be.

So we looked aloft where the seagulls nest

In the cosy clefts high in rock above our heads;