A Cage To Hold My Dreams
Colleena
Everything here luxuriates in sun and rain
and abundance.
Ireland drives the demons from my mind, it erases
the bad memories, it rescues me from the suffer zone.
In Ireland I rediscover the reasons for being.
Here, I possess a million senses, all throbbing wildly
I become the trees and the haunted castles, and the
storm-tossed harbours and the old monasteries.
I feel immortal, for in Ireland, nothing
dies anymore, each day is born to live forever.
Everything I have known, the best and the worst,
love which I cling to and discard, dreams fulfilled,
opportunities lost, they flood back to me under
these stars, the same stars I see in England
yet here they tell different stories, they arouse different
feelings, they throw open the shutters of my mind.
The clatter of sea on rocks never stops.
Waves hard and blue attack these shores like
marines spilling from a landing craft, but the land
fights back, yielding only what it must
I am astonished at the energy their struggle gives me.
My mind races like a formula one engine nearing
its limits.
I want to dive off the rocks and swim like a blue
shark and photograph rainbows and run at
the horizon. For no reason at all, I remember
the first time I knocked down another boxer,
who fell surprised and boneless at my feet ;
and helping to bury my father, wondering selfishly
if his dying thoughts had been for me.
Out of the stillness comes a deafening roar, the sky
darkens, rain skates across the landscape, skipping,
twisting, bending the long grass. Occasionally
a finger of lightning pokes some distant object, a tall tree
or church tower, then an arrogant crash of thunder
tries to wipe the smile off Ireland's proud, west face.
When the storm passes, I walk to my favourite
spot, a derelict stone cottage overlooking the bay,
dead, abandoned, forgotten. A hundred years ago,
this house had a roof and a blazing turf fire, and cooking
pots and noisy children. Their ghosts dance round me,
their voices shrill against the noises of the sea.
This room once held the tang of lamp-oil, and a rickety
spinning-wheel and a framed picture of the Sacred
Heart. My early life is painted on these stones.
I see my grandfather's weathered face in the firelight,
relaxed, thoughtful, weary from his day behind
the plough
I see my Aunt Mary, framed by the window, making
bread and humming softly, occasionally flicking
a loose hair from her eyes, while under the table, Nellie our
retired border-collie, the house pet, grunts happily and
thinks of sausages.
Sunday morning and clean shirts are found, hair is slicked
down, everyone gets ready to go to Mass.
Aunt Josie always makes us wait while she tries on
various bonnets. Grandad grumbles, reins-in-hand,
the pony snorts, and Josie wants to know if anyone has
seen her prayer book.
In her room beside mine Colleena sleeps whilst
her goodnight kiss lays softly on my lips. She is my heroine,
my conscience, my tormentor, my salvation, private,
mysterious, incorruptible. Outside my window, branches
stir, boughs bend, the wind hums a sad tune
and I fall asleep composing the lyrics.
Dublin/080404
