Losing my father again

All that November day
shadowed by your horse
I drifted
eyes salted with the memory of tears
till yellow neons lit the orphaned leaves
floating in gutters
and I knew at last
you'd gone
rafting down the river of your dreams.
 
 

Naming the Sorrow

Long years I wished for you, wanted you , willed you,
and every moon month raged and wept
when disappointment flowed.And then at last your golden beat 
was pulsing in my darkness
making me so secret and so whole.

Twelve weeks 
a white fish
with big black eyes 
I held you 
baptising you in a river of tears
til they took you away

I called ,     called      would have called you Alice.
 
 

Angel Art

What angel took the picture  
the day you washed the cabbage
in the sun
that after all the years 
the image burns my inner eye
like red geraniums
and the summer sky condensed 
to splash the willow plates.

Chin high at your yellow sink
I watched you hold each cup shaped tree
beneath the cleansing flow
crystals, falling rain
on green green drowned forest 
you kept submerged
till little bubble diamonds hatched
then shaking leaves, me accidentally blessed.
 
 

There's nothing like having a baby at Christmas to focus your mind on cribs   

Now at Christmas 
I avoid stables especially those posing as maternity units
where the post natal regime involves 
kneeling robed in blue
hands joined
head inclined slightly to the left
wistfully gazing at infants
spread-eagled in the straw
surrounded by bearded men
 
            I rewrite ..and rewrite... again... and again

......and  when Joseph had cut the cord 
and She lay back in the straw 
to rest Her sweat soaked head on his cloak
and he cleaned the baby
as best he could in the circumstances
and laid Him in Her arms
and His tiny fist closed around Her finger,
and She suckled Him
saying "This is his body"
for the very first time

...and it came to pass that She slept a while
and while she slept two women came 
one carrying some bread 
and one a pitcher of water
or maybe wine......
 

It's a boy!

No weary wise men
trailed east to Holles Street
the night that you were born.
No smelly camels
were tethered to the railings.
No tell tale whiff of frankincense
lingered in the lifts.
No dusting of gold sand
puzzled the cleaners on the early shift.
There was no alleluia chorus.
But pigeons came from Ringsend
to coo on the window sills
and the morning light lay gently on me
and lit the orchids tied in blue,
and I lifted you again
getting used to the weight of the gift
of another child born
under a coincidence of stars.
 
 

Metaphorical Mash

The relief 
to admit 
I'm a mashed potato

I  lie back 
a battered 
anaemic 
lumpy 
homogenius  mess
camouflaged 
on a white plate 
to contemplate my fate

I could have been a  french  fry
long 
chic 
thin
with an all over tan 
universally acclaimed 
making franchised fortunes,or 

integrity intact and fully clothed
enjoyed the tang of barbecue
revealing my pure heart 
had gold of kingdom for reward.
or even, 

have grown old, and wrinkled
in the dark, forgotten 
and sent out 
long 
luminous 
purple tentacles-----
auditioned for Star Trek

all is not lost 
a skinny dip in egg
a loaf around  in bread crumbs
croquettish resurrection.