I Am Said I (Huruma)

Awaking what is dormant…giving sound to the silence I’m thinking about the arrival of Jesus, the new arrival for this time in my life, for all our time and I wonder in what space will he choose to be born again. There are the usual suspects – my sin, the areas of my life where I’m not in control, my vulnerability. But then I remember an add on tv. A man is walking along the corridor of his company building when he hears an old phone ringing. The sound comes from behind a door of ‘The Complaints Department’. The man enters the room which is covered in dust and cobwebs; he answers the phone, listens to the voice on the other end of the line and replies something like, “sorry, you’ve got the wrong number!” The product they are advertising has not had a complaint in years and there is no complaint now, so the man emerges from the room satisfied and he closes the door on the gathered dust within. I’d like to be able to stand before God with no complaint made agai...

Nights I cannot sleep Mornings I cannot wake It’s one of those times Now Twenty five minutes Past twelve Midday This house is my soul The kitchen its centre Telling the prayer Of a battered chair Ablutions in a cold Basin Cinder ashes tumbled On the concrete floor No fire An idle shovel leaning There for want Of a hand Holy water Faded photo Clear memory The sieved life Womanly pink painted Over manly blue Peeling away The old distinctions Male or female No different now In Him ii He is not here The One I love He might have gone The One I need My Saviour Brother Beyond The fields of herding Cows Over the hills of grazing Sheep It could be late When He returns Or am I the absent one The blind who cannot See The numb who does not Feel? The Immaculate Heart On the mantle piece Must help me here Assure me That we will connect Again That He is here Even in the waiting Emptiness Take the shirt that hangs There waiting too , She says Be covered, comforted Warmed in the scented Meantime...

Scent of white Jasmine mingled With burning turf Taste of arabica Coffee ground brown Toast Sounds of the house Stretching awake The creak Of beaking day Damp hiss of wood On fire kindle Crackling Repressed flame leaping Into life The uncertainty of wounds Not healed finds expression Blended ecstasy Of agony and hope

You’ve had it As a serious artist Now Your songs are on The mellow music playlist Of Sunshine Radio Stroking The nostalgic flabbiness Of the middle-aged Who hanker pastwards Your edge Sharp with meaning Relevant Become a blunted Blandness You can have it As a serious artist Now In the stripped down Stillness Prophetic silence That gives birth To forward thrusted Yearning Fire of soul Sharpness of sword Sound of the deep

Feast Of Christ The King I was in prison and you visited me The book and the movie ‘Dead Man Walking’ tell the true story of   Matthew Poncelet, a  man facing death alone, except for the love of a Catholic sister. He is a castaway, considered untouchable and worthy of death by his society. The nun comforts him and says, "I can't bear the thought that you would die without seeing one loving face. I will be the face of Christ for you." She is Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille. He is one of four convicted of murder whom she has accompanied to the death chamber in Louisiana and he asked her to accompany him spiritually in his journey to death. ( http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Apr1996/feature1.asp ) In celebrating the feast of Christ the King we honour a King who is a shepherd, one who looks after all His people, with emphasis on the word ALL. Not just SOME  but ALL - each and every one! “The Lord says this: I am going...

I am present At his passing This fine strong gentle Man Builder of boats Husband father grandad Deep strength of faith On his knees even In his agony I brought him Communion He loved the sea In me and made Tea Made me feel Special While we talked Galway and other Common ground Fingering old timber Caressed like the tender Flesh of a loved one The last call Talked of hours Urgent Time to heed Better instincts Without hesitation All generations gathered Around his fading moments To sing and say Final farewells Whipsered in his ear One by one Unrestrained Love Anointing Praying Sé do bheatha a Mhuire Child's head Resting on his breast He falls asleep Slips away Rested

In the premature falling Night Head bowed bent Forward against the absence Of an Indian Summer Rain like Rice Crispies Snap-crackle-popping On the flapping plastic Of my hood Wind whipped ears My eyes in custody See only the ground On which I walk Isolated The world empty now Except for the odd stray Runner squawking seagull Scared crow Swan heads buried In the river Hidden But not hiding I think of all the false Belongings I have tasted The true belonging Of Love That draws me in To the Claddagh church Before Mass Enfolded in the radiance Of Your Face Lifted up to intimate communion

How is a child Supposed to know That the truth lies Somewhere in between Your scolding emotion Scalded devotion? You never said That it was love It feels like hate The too-tight noose Of your embrace Sword of tongue Tasting like captivity Though you keep promising Freedom

I. A bit rough around the edges Said Love With tears And a quivering voice Like the fields he farmed The soil that felt his footfall Strong and straight Loyal Not easy then with Weakness in another Vulnerability became him As with surprising grace He himself surrendered Allowing us a glimpse Of something more tender Faith-filled Praying his way Homeward With an eye for the frailest Left behind II. He is laid to rest now In this land that he loved A calm November day Sun shining, birds singing Breeze blowing Bough of trees bending River flowing Rainbow in a clear Blue sky Last leaf falling Whistling in the wind In this place there is Peace (In memory of Fr. Roger Rafter sac)

THE FEAST OF ALL SOULS 2 ND NOVEMBER 2014 INTRODUCTION As we remember the dead today we pray with great hope to the Lord who is constantly bringing life out of death and light out of darkness. PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL We remember our own dead and our own sadness … Tears speak out our grief, but they also witness to our love and we are glad to have loved so much that we can cry.  May those we have loved rest in your embrace, O Lord .  LORD HEAR US We remember the loss and grief of others around us.  We think of the funerals we have been at in the last year … We pray especially for those who are without consolation .  LORD HEAR US We pray for all the people who have died in our community and in our country this past year – older people; younger people; those who died content; those who died struggling – all sharing in common that they died into the arms of our loving God.  LORD HEAR US Wherever there is grief, may hope be allowed to ...

(In loving memory of my cousin Paul who found solace in the words of this poem and whose untimely death has given these words another meaning. November 3, 2012) Place me on a shore at dusk By the sea’s healing waters Where thoughts like boats G o floating by my mind’s eye Some circling round Or anchored to distract Yet not to hide your Light My Love Place me at dusk on a shore Where the soul’s calm sea Is stormed and laid to rest At your command To contemplate your Light My Love This I ask Amen!

She waits in the shadows Of a winter evening’s dusk Eyes grown slowly dim Everything slowing down Children wandering Away and astray The tight control On life’s unfolding Unravelled In exile Looking homeward With a wondering Would it have been Better not to have left At all in the first place? The question might Be better left Unasked in the end The answer left Unsaid.

I am An exile torn Between home And the foreign Land that welcomed Where I have Put down deep roots And borne Part of me Is left behind In every arrival Given to each Person encountered And home Is only gained Again when all Is lost And there is no more Letting go

The child understood Chains of the heart The cold of exclusion Before his conception Formed felt forth By Creator Mother Father Uttered into sound Issuing from t he deep recesses Of pre-creation chaos The cry for deliverance Abiding wordless language Of his fettered flight-bound Yearning ever upward

Sitting at the back of an empty church on a dark evening, I look up the distance to the tabernacle and think of Judith Hearne (from the novel by Brian Moore). I had intended meditating, taking up the usual posture, when something within suggested that postures are not necessary when one comes to visit Love. So, I took to gazing and thinking. Judith Hearne was a woman lost in alcoholism and absolutely lonely at 40-something. She had prayed all her life and had gotten a raw deal and she comes in the end to a similar church demanding some answer from Jesus in the tabernacle but He remains silent and her faith is weakening rapidly. The sacristan and later the priest come out into the sanctuary and their attitude in front of the tabernacle suggests to her that they don’t believe either that there’s anyone there. We who are familiar with the sacred can become so casual that we forget the Presence and maybe stop believing in reality, without ever thinking about it. Now in this chur...

The Cross is upon me This Epiphany Myrrh for death and burial I have no other gift Knees that must fall down To worship This birth, this child, this life The collision Has always been there But we prefer not to notice Leaving the dealing For another time I was praying the crucifixion On a hard day When all my effort Had lost meaning The futile taste Of bile rising up The little child of God Not yet familiar with words Came to speak Annunciation to the crucified Birth to the dying Beginning to the ending Hope for the hopeless There are possibilities In everything  

We were largely content To play in the avenue Stadium of our invention Sixty something children or so Largely content with skilled And innocent games But there were days When we needed to know Courage and how much of it We had in us As one we marched down To the top of Tone Avenue Pitting ourselves against The patience and restraint Of Congo Murray who had No patience in him at all Here Congo!  here Congo ! We in unison roared Springing him into leap And chase till we were Safely home and he was In retreat We did it again and again Until  he got so vexed He decided to put a stop To our collective gallop The girl let out a screech That turned us cold Pumping blood that made Us colder still Congo had taken a huge Lump out of her leg Swear to God we said Crossing our throats Our tails between our legs For a while

I would love my children  To know What it was like to work As a boy I grew up at eleven And loved it The job and the first Two pounds wages Upstairs in a music shop With a speaker on the window For all the town to hear Black Velvet Band Was huge that Summer And all the days were hot I did errands and the tinker In me revelled Going off to the hardware For a can of paint And there I was The cat that got the cream Crossing Eyre Square In sunshine And out of the blue I collapsed black out cold Opening my astonished eyes To a crowd of grown ups Looking down But worst of all The can had leaked And I ran with it The boss roared You bloody eejit Never thinking to ask How or why the leak And I never thinking To explain

Are these the wonders of the Lord That we behold now Is this the sea On which we sail The unleashing of His pent up tears The gale of His panting Is this what it takes For us to really pray To scream out our need Of  Him? Peter’s boat is old now Unsafely holding all That is needed Him and us For everything there is A season There will be an answer To the prayer He will awake There will be again That quiet calm of His But this is the season Of our being tossed about The tumult The season of our crying And it is the season Of His sleeping