as i scale this mountain
i feel like i belong
and though i feel invited
drawn by the wind’s song
the pungent scent of sage
on the springtime breeze
tells me to tread lightly
for i am only visiting

ANSEO A TÁ TÚ
(YOU ARE HERE )

Spring had come
dressed the farm

in its best green.

Even the sky
wore the latest blue

a sort of shy
eternity.

Birds had been
perfectly positioned

after a great deal of thought
by whoever had put them

there.

Furrows crawled lazily
across the face of a field

glistening with a newness
that the day couldn't

help but be
excited by.

The trees were beside
themselves

madly in love
with time

who had been kind
to them for ages now.

Ballea lay
smiling before him

Even its very name
made his heart dance.

Even the very saying of it
made his soul swoon.

"Anseo a tá tú!"
he says to himself.

The Irish sweetening
each loved syllable.

"You are here!"
he reminds himself

in case one of the birds only
spoke English.

And never was the boy
who had come back

in the shape
of a man

as delighted
as he.

"Anseo a tá tú. . .indeed!"
his ghost smiles to his self.

*

I was wishing that in his dying my father would return  to the little farm in Cork and complete his life cycle by being the ghost of the little boy who adored the earth and sky of his native place. I wanted to hold his hand and bring him here... even if only in words. Da...you are here! You have come home...walk into the light.

on a day such as this,
one might be allowed to recline
into a royal "oneness" of pronouns -
beside the 'we' of an entourage:

if the air was like this
through the months of may
through to august -
coolly: calmly - a fixture
of briskness matched with one's
step...

i don't feel anything is mine...
i don't want a dynamic of
i this my that (from time to time):
if the air could remain this
cool... that not suffocating
air from the south could
ever find its way this far north...

we could have ourselves
something resembling
a Scandinavian bloom of emotions...
of course in the form of -esque
but never mind that:

to walk half a marathon
breaking the rhythm at circa half-way
having to find some sustenance...
what could be more ideal than
something ~75 pence worth of:
a Lidl stone-baked bun
and a packet of plums...

   i would jest at the chance to eat raw
dough like a Tibetan
but the raw fruit was...
what raw fruit always was:
a repose from fermentation...
i didn't wish for butter...
how oddly crazed it must have
appeared when rubbing a plum
against my tracksuit
a groove in the frame
one little eager ****** escaped
while the juggling was
over before it even began...

life felt Herr Norman Groofsy -
the same old parrots of
4pm on the streets attired in their
uniforms leaving
the minced meat factory /
ahem... the schools...
options of sweets and deep fried goods
while i slobbered like a squid
my plums pinched the bun
like a crow...

  it was sunny and as i passed
a row of daffodils
i couldn't but feel an impasse
at the burst of colour from the canvas
of hushed tones...
looking at them felt like
eating a bowl of strawberries
or a watermelon...

mind you: i was trying feed that other
bookish joy of coming into contact
with Linear B...
as if i somehow escaped a hiatus i succumbed
to having come into contact
with hangeul & katakana -
because... those mandarin logograms are
too many and i have to remember
all the spelling(s) tying and untying
of the words: readily lent...

ease this mind with enough
work of the legs -
break each spinster of a spider
at the tip of each of these fingers
with the eyes that look ahead and do not
look down at the keyboard...

spring and all its fashion has
come for the first time it would seem...
after a death
that... after a death and a Kandinsky
half an annum of toiling
with the "****" of living space
by the kitchen and bathroom
being refurbished... etc.
what a lost winter otherwise
spent rummaging in autumnal leaves
drunk in the night...

"we" write too much of very little...
with such concrete letters
reaching for abstract delights
to churn, charge... "we"...
         well, no... just me...
it could have been so much less than
what has already been arrived
at...
i just hope this example
of yet more chicken scratching
of an itch is brimming with
conversational overtones;

i'd die sooner than rhyme.

Today it would’ve been your birthday.
I would’ve made a handmade card for you as always
signed with a “love you” phrase and painted bouquets
together with some real tulips.
It would’ve been a perfect day.

But it is not the same this year,
I am alone and you’re not there.
God had another plan.

You taught me to be brave
and faced with trouble never to complain.
Even while fighting so much pain
you were a rainbow after rain.
You taught me on a stormy day to be a wave.

But it is not the same this year,
I am alone and you’re not there.
And out of habit I have made your card.