Two Items:

a) I am making good progress with my latest book: In the Light of Bridges – Hamburg Fragments   I expect to be finished in about two months, to be published in spring.

b) my copies of Prairie Schooner, (nebraska University) an anthology of Irish writing, arrived a few days ago.

Two of my poems: THE LAST BARD and LIMBO are included in Prairie Schooner:

The Last Bard 

for Sally McKenna – creator of Raftery sculpture in Kiltimagh

 On Lios Árd among beech trees, I lie

like a novice on moss and grass and

you are in those battered clouds

looking down at colours you know by heart.

I was a fierce warrior here at eight.

At nine, I hacked my name into a tree.

A dog howls. In the distance the river

whispers, it’s time to sleep. I wrap

my book in fern and see stars slipping

like melting ice. A fox bickers.

A rabbit pleads. I smell red wind

and shut my eyes to catch you reeling in the sun.

*

You left Cill Aodáin in a hurry – to do with

the death of a horse – odds on, a tall tale!

With hands out wide, you trudged south to Tuam,

then on to Craughwell and Gort.

You knew darkness and could measure light:

come to me – come with me – show me your scars

and I will curse for you.

While Saint Bridget hung washing on a sunbeam

in spring, you dreamt of being a boy again

with rod and golden worms. Flowers and lists

of red berries carpeted the bog road in Cill Aodáin.

There was a first night in Claremorris and

strong drink in Balla. Kiltimagh was steeped in laughter.

All this was yours for a song.  A poet dreams.

A muse seeks its own geography.

*

You are back – a sculpture in Kiltimagh – a bard

trapped in open air for entertainment. I try to keep

an up-to-date diary of other routine events:

A woman in curlers charts a love story

in a shop window; another sings

of a long-lost lotto ticket.

Health-freaks check their feet before

walking round in circles; a footless man

peeps through the church railing.

Planes hardly clear the houses in Knock

and children are rushed off to piano lessons

and you say:

come, sit by me for a moment. I am blind.

I have walked to Galway and can hear the sun.

*

The child in your tomb will continue to outlive

days of holy awe and judgement –

in Cill Aodáin in springtime, with nature

writing colour into a new season, your silhouette,

baked in earth and sound, is stencilled in the sky.