Before the dawn

 When the dawn comes 

When the dawn comes 

My birds have flown

Their matin songs long over. 

Two hours ago they were up

And ready with their chorus

Before we glimpsed the sun

Light up the Eastern sky. 

Before the Irish Sea had been invaded

By limpid light from our Eastern neighbor 

Before the Brecon Beacons shared the dawn

The birds were calling to their partners 

Whistling gaily a familiar song

To welcome in another day. 

These magic hours before the dawn 

Known well by monks in sacred halls 

By sleepless pilgrims, the insomniacs

Who populate this private time

Who own this hour and rule a world

That casts its spell on rich and poor. 

This special hour when cows in parlors 

Are milked by farmers still rubbing eyes

This time that yields to silence  

Cometh the hour, cometh the dawn

Then other noises are invading

Excluding voices of the early morn. 

Enter another busy day with elbows

Exiling weaker predawn creatures

Trucks start up with diesel coughs

Kettles whistle in apartment blocks

Children wrestle with a final sleep

Tossing in their nice warm beds

Still weighed down by heavy heads. 

Coffee in Paradise.

 Stirring the coffee

Stirring the coffee, Brian and I 

Clinking the spoon against the Bodum

Spreading the jam on hot buttered toast

Overlooking the pool in apartment Four A*

Beyond the poolside lie white painted domes 

And beyond that the sea both azure and calm

Beneath the blue sky lies an island of charm

La Gomera bonita our magical neighbor. 

No haste over breakfast 

The day’s heating up

With things to discuss

From Quakers to neighbors. 

Did we really appreciate 

How lucky we were?

If we could only go back

We’d value it more. 

No point in complaining

Or feeling so sad 

Better make plans

Before we go mad! 

*4A Adeje Paradise, Playa Paraiso, South Western Tenerife. Our second home 2004-2020 

Saint Oliver’s

 Looking down from St Oliver’s 

Looking down from Saint Oliver’s plots 

Down the daffodilled lanes

Looking across to the Hill in Killiney

And over to Howth in the distance. 

Deans Grange cemetery is quiet

This mild Spring morning in March

Saved from burials this morning

The bleakest of rituals during Covid. 

Handsome headstones stand guard 

To the loved and the lost from the past

Mourning grandads and grand-mummies,

Daddies and mammies, occasionally children too. 

Fresh flowers in well tended graves

The affection still there and still true

Remembering those we have loved

Appreciated more that they’ve passed.    

I’ve come to salute special  lives

I carry around in the pockets

Of memories grown fonder with years 

Gratitude has replaced all the tears. 

Thank you Desmond and Kate at the Gate

And Andy and Moyna and Marie

And high up the company of Oliver 

Thank you Kevin and Lily and sister Kate. 

The daffodils line all the roads  

Waving their heads in the wind

Lining with gold every Avenue

Saluting each soul in the graveyard. 

For it is a sweet, sacred duty to pray

To keep alive to this day

The memory of those who truly loved us

For the belief and support that they gave. 

I rise today

 I rise today

I rise today

To the music of Lyric FM

Banished from today

Sky News and the relentless roll

Of bad news from around the world. 

Tired I am 

Of chasing bad news on my phone 

Doomscroling as I wander

Down the pages

And paragraphs that have no end. 

There is another life 

Beyond the echo, beyond the wall

In the world of music

Often without the words

All the better for the soul. 

A windy night gives way

To a rugged dawn

A present from the month of March

Who doesn’t know or doesn’t care

Today’s the day one year on

When we joined the world 

By retreating to our rooms

To stay safely in domestic wombs

While war was waged in hospital wards

And hundreds died in old folks homes. 

A terrible plague was born 

Fathered by skiers from resorts

Spread by golf and funerals

Innocent mistakes with higher stakes 

Than most conflicts or wars. 

Here we sit

The thirteenth of March

Spared by the enemy waiting patiently 

For reinforcements to arrive

Before declaring victory. 

So it’s back to music

I return and to poetry to salve

The soul and protect my sanity 

Hold onto dreams that deliver

A future world of touch and feel. 

Pebbles

 My poems are pebbles 

 

My poems are like pebbles 

Thrown in a fountain

Like pennies in the Trevi

No classic sculpture even. 

It’s not the pebbles

Making ripples in the pond 

But the sunlight in the water

Catching summer sparkles.

The poems are not written

By the meter or even by the yard

No pricing metric ever chose

The measure of this bard. 

Swimmingly

 It’s on days like this

It’s on days like this I feel blessed

To live in dear Glenageary

The valley of the sheep in Irish

That leads all the way to DunLaoghaire. 

A gentle twenty minute stroll 

To the small beach in Sandycove 

That acts like a magnet to swimmers

The swimmers who swim in the cold. 

It’s sunny but chilly this March day

With a wind whipping in from the North

The ladies are here in their Dry Robes

For me a blast from the past. 

I remember the cold early mornings 

The bracing swims of the eighties 

When some men went bathing nude

At the forbidding fierce Forty Foot. 

Eventually the women arrived 

And forced the men into their togs 

Mind you there wasn’t a lot to be seen

When it all had but disappeared. 

In the words of Joyce years before

The waters were scrotum tightening 

That and the waves were frightening

For only the strongest of souls. 

So now the Harbour is filled 

With hair tied up in neat buns

Ne’er a man to be seen

Or anything else somehow.

Silent Revolt

 The people have revolted

The people have revolted

Not that the Government has noticed

The only masks in Sandycove 

Are on the eighty one year olds. 

The kids are playing, running free

After twelve months they might as well be

And their Mums in fitted jeans 

Discuss young Harry and the Queen. 

Not a mask in sight but it’s outside

So I guess that’s better somehow

The masses have quietly said naught

The war is over, the battle fought. 

The health officials now sound like prelates, 

Respected but ignored

The sermons preached to smaller crowds 

Convincing the converted. 

Out in the field the horse has bolted

While they admire the stable door

Solemn ministers expounding

To the faithful few from a pedestal. 

I’m happy to wait for my vaccine

Stand in line to hear my call

Mine is a generation that knows patience

Is a virtue and value more. 

In my case eight years in a seminary

Of which seven spent in a monastery

Three thousand days one like another

Steels the soul for adversity. 

I recount all this without anger

Or even sadness because I know

Our youth has suffered and now

It’s  time to let our people go.