On this isthmus of land
I stand
And look across the bay of Cork:
Craggy young fishermen
Crease the clotted earth
And feel the pulse
The weary song that mermaids sing.
A French liner
Tall as cliffs
Anchors on high.
The nighttime ferry to Wales
Lurks nearby
Ready to swallow its raucous load
Of braying louts.
I stand alone
Not so much in farewell
But in remaining with you:
The wash of betrayal
Has not sundered
The terroir we share.
How much bitter leave-taking
Has old Ireland spent
In nights of grief
And mournful remembrance.
Centuries ago
My family and yours
Sailed from these ragged shores
Bedeviled by dynastic dreams.
Incarcerated in grace
All these hopeful schemes
Comingled in warmer skies
Where failure meant
A more genteel dishabille -
For here children survived.
My darling grandmamma
Never saw this coast again
The siblings scattered
The parents dead
And she
An island beyond the Diaspora.
We like she
Now chase the better life -
Or its wounded dream.
We are prosperous pilgrims
Born aloft on all that longing
The aspirational ascent
Now measured in stark beneficence.
Old Ireland haunts
Our ruptured troth and plight
And wiser sadder be
In farewell and in hope
We set to sail in the gloomy breeze:
Memory whistles down this place.
The sadness always clings -
That melancholic Irish lilt
That sends a heart beguiling -
Tipsy mad and tipsy sad:
We shall survive and dream again
Mine own but not mine own.
Here on this isthmus of land
There is an awful quiet beauty
In the ritual of farewell.
Gar Jones: January 2005/January 2017
I stand
And look across the bay of Cork:
Craggy young fishermen
Crease the clotted earth
And feel the pulse
The weary song that mermaids sing.
A French liner
Tall as cliffs
Anchors on high.
The nighttime ferry to Wales
Lurks nearby
Ready to swallow its raucous load
Of braying louts.
I stand alone
Not so much in farewell
But in remaining with you:
The wash of betrayal
Has not sundered
The terroir we share.
How much bitter leave-taking
Has old Ireland spent
In nights of grief
And mournful remembrance.
Centuries ago
My family and yours
Sailed from these ragged shores
Bedeviled by dynastic dreams.
Incarcerated in grace
All these hopeful schemes
Comingled in warmer skies
Where failure meant
A more genteel dishabille -
For here children survived.
My darling grandmamma
Never saw this coast again
The siblings scattered
The parents dead
And she
An island beyond the Diaspora.
We like she
Now chase the better life -
Or its wounded dream.
We are prosperous pilgrims
Born aloft on all that longing
The aspirational ascent
Now measured in stark beneficence.
Old Ireland haunts
Our ruptured troth and plight
And wiser sadder be
In farewell and in hope
We set to sail in the gloomy breeze:
Memory whistles down this place.
The sadness always clings -
That melancholic Irish lilt
That sends a heart beguiling -
Tipsy mad and tipsy sad:
We shall survive and dream again
Mine own but not mine own.
Here on this isthmus of land
There is an awful quiet beauty
In the ritual of farewell.
Gar Jones: January 2005/January 2017