A new chapter

Te Deum Te deum agamus gratias This cool October evening Now that the autumn air Is cool and clear and full of peace.  We shall give thanks From misty morning til the sun Has disappeared behind the mountains And pink skies light the west.  Grateful for this day For this very moment  Joyful in the now Captured by the present.  The morning rain has passed It fills with smells the forest floor The crows croak high up in the trees Their rasping voices singing vespers.  Below the city thrums with traffic A distant roar, a constant hum Up on the Hill we sit above The cares of life and everything.  Simple pleasures on a simple day Around a corner stands a tree Like a soldier straight and bare A wooded sentinel in prayer.  Other voices ring the woods Calls and thrills and cheeps Night-time stories told to chicks Lull little feathered ones to sleep. 

  Through a gap Through a gap we spied the sea Above the brambles beneath the trees Killiney Bay lay down below Where we met some years ago.  Holding hands and feeling thrilled The magic of young romance  All was fresh and inviting  A future alluring and exciting.  Happiness was what we had Grasped and pressed and kept safe For colder days when life was harder And pressure came from all sides.  Return we would to Dalkey village  To the church and familiar shops  Our homestead and our homeland The faithful guardian of our souls Back we wend on wooded paths Pick our steps forty five years later Holding hands again more tightly  Than in the early days of innocence. 

Green hills Green hills against blue mountains A warm wind    crowns the autumn eve October twilight brightens up the sky As the baton passes to the West.  Untold suffering beyond our shores In a Land unHoly, peace has fled Hounded out by men of violence  Some in suits behind closed doors.  The crisis deepens everywhere We look in vain for sparks of light What can we do but keep the faith? Maintain the hope til springtime comes.  I round the corner and spot the Kish* It sparkles sweetly in the dying light A motor boat with white plumes behind Is witness to advancing night.  Chestnuts fall on forest floors As schoolboys    harvest conkers As their fathers did before In the hopeful sixties.  Up the hill climb young women Long hair flowing releasing perfume Runners running in white shoes  Dogs off leash sniffing the air.  All is well and all is not  In the places God forgot  Do the Heavens hear our call? God speed you re...

  A handwritten note A handwritten note you have to admire The commitment to write and to visit The deep quiet lanes of Wexford.  These missionary souls Seeking to convert And lead us to Jehovah.  The letter in an envelope Sodden by the rain  In a post box shared by four.  Half the words washed off Leaving only references  To the Holy Bible.  I sat down and I thought Of these courageous souls Far from home perhaps.  The sun is shining down As September slithers out  For another eleven months.  The world is turning in a spin  The Galaxy glides fast Through an open space.  They thought of me So I shall think of them  Wherever fate shall bring us. 

  God’s likeness Three thousand years ago They fashioned Gods as Lions Birds of prey and Serpents Theology developed and religion Changed course and made man central A God with human traits and reason This God was mostly peaceful A Father to his flock, trying but unable To explain the mystery of evil.  Evil lurks in every man Across the twinkling universe Black holes devour bright worlds.  Ying and yang in symmetry  Good and evil dance a tango To the music of the Milky Way.  There is more to heaven and earth  Than our poor minds can grasp We fail to catch infinity At the heart of all is mystery That will not fit a simple theory  Only partly explained by theology.  Along with beauty is decay After birth comes death  In a lonely spiral.  Man alone across the heavens Has the skill to laugh and sing Lives spent explaining everything.  For God is wave and particle  Far distant yet intimate  Always present yet far distant. ...

  The Wedding The wedding garlands on each pew  That lead up to the altar Of the Church of the Assumption In Our Lady’s Island, Wexford.  No tell tale sign, no signal If the wedding’s in the past  Or waiting for the nervous couple This September afternoon.  Sitting on the forward bench In front of Mary’s statue All is quiet but for the song Of a noisy thrush in bushes.  Birdsong and the buffeting  Of winds that travel miles Across south Wexford plains Born in the Atlantic.  A silence broken on occasion By a tractor on its way To the golden fields in Carne It’s a day for making hay.  Old men chatter outside the pub Still closed on a weekend morning Swapping tales of lobster fishing As the catching season’s ending.  Beneath her statue a single light A candle bought by a morning pilgrim All is peaceful and serene Stain glass depicts a saintly being.  I look back on my childhood  Grateful for the faith and piety That enriched the y...