Poem (an old one, for Fins)

phishgod

Poem

And there were birds calling,
in sunset fields of flight
on a seabreeze eve,
and children laughing looked about,
the graves of six
lone Irishmen,
cold over 100 years
since first the coast
was settled.

And there was continuity
of motion in the
constellations, a mystery
rising by nightfall—
and faint bars of
a joyful jig,
so soft a brogue
you could barely hear,
but I know
it was there,
and that Irish
eyes were smiling
at the worms.

--October 1, 1993
@pth

phishgod

This was was really a "found poem." On a high bluff on the Oregon coast, I'd stopped at sundown to let the kiddies play in the sunfield after a long travel day on the road, and much to our surprise, we'd found ourselves in an old graveyard with just six stones from the late 1800's, marking where a family of six dead Irish immigrant settlers rested, who all had died from some disease within days of one another. The contrast between these lone solitary Irish graves and kids playing in the sundown light left, me thinking of the Irish spirit and how they must have enjoyed the sounds of their own family & kids at play in happier times.

So C. said the other night, "you should post that one for Fins," so here it is....

EvilToasterElf

Phish you have such a potent image to work with there, not to put down the piece you wrote but I'm willing to bet if you thought real hard about it again ten years later, something better could come out

FinsburyParkCarrots

"My dark fathers lived the intolerable day
Committed always to the night of wrong,
Stiffened at the hearthstone, the woman lay,
perished feet nailed to her man's breastbone.
Grim houses beckoned in the swelling gloom
Of Munster fields where the Atlantic night
Fettered the child within the pit of doom,
And everywhere a going down of light."

darkrose

Originally posted by EvilToasterElf
Phish you have such a potent image to work with there, not to put down the piece you wrote but I'm willing to bet if you thought real hard about it again ten years later, something better could come out

I agree.

phishgod

Thanks for your read & comments, friends.
Maybe make another poem on another day.
Once they are done they pretty much stay.

But seriously, since I don't do revisions, I sometimes I do rework old images into new pieces, and who knows, maybe for some reason some day it will occur to me to return to this one, since I love the Orygun coast, and I have marked out the spot.

Poems from on the road memories pretty much come up as they will, & I just writes 'em as I sees 'em, so they's not forgotten.
That's pretty much what this one did, & as for this potent image
one, hmmm...funny thing about that, though, it seems to be working & accomplishing what I intended now-- , doesn't it?

I dig the feedback though gang, maybe it will work its way into another one someday.

Aye. Fins. That one marked it pretty well too now me boy, that I'll grant ye.