Roads without Bend.

On January 31st, Sebastian Barry’s new novel, ‘Days Without End’ was announced as the overall winner of the Costa Book Awards for 2016. The award was only justice for Barry who has attained cult status that is not his thing but there it is! It’s a long, long way from the mild west of Wicklow to the wild west of Missouri to write more sacred scripture but seamless for a permanent gentleman. Sebastian becomes the first writer to win the overall award on two occasions having previously been successful with his inspirational novel “The Secret Scripture”.

By way of celebrating another Irish success the Prodigal thought it apt to string a few verses together based on some of the words and phrases found in ‘Days Without End’. Any man who chooses to name his children after a sea creature, a magician and a jug deserves nothing but applause. Here it is!

Roads without Bend.

 

When the strength died out of his father’s earth

And hunger pinched his fallen face
He met the moon and stars up close
Mirrors of a new disgrace.

 

Just a fragment of legend yet to come
Hatched under a hedge in wild Missouri
No compass or map; no direction
Just forward and future and certain furore.

 

The hunger wolves under hunger moons
Sand and Sioux, longing and thirst,
And always the question; who would survive
It maybe came down to who caught his horse first.

 

Now baked, then chilled, like a sweating wall
Loose as dawn and tight as noon
Face a collection of forgotten smiles
Just there; linger note of a banshee croon.

 

Afoot, black acres of fallen flames
Ashes like Lent Wednesday in Sligo town
Mississippi glancing sideways at Wilsons Creek
The whip-poor-will inviting perdition down.

 

Snow tonsure perched on mountain top
Just a simple sight some distance ahead
Like beauty and lesser swapping places in the face
Deposits from the living in accounts of the dead.

 

When all options are floated, memory picks itself,
Lace and shawl of winter on the shoulders of the hills,
Peering at the past through concave lenses
Bitterness buried in unmarked drills.

SpAndrés

Twin brown hands cupped together

Lattice fingers underpinning,

Digits of fair Spanish weather

Have known loving and sister sinning.

Offered me a stone, a twig, a cone of pine

Abandoned by a woodland creature

The offering of friendship, simple sign,

The simple gift itself; a gift from nature.

Navacerrada; once home to Indian braves

The Navajo of the Arizona plains

Once proudest of red people, turned to slaves

Now shovelling dirt and clearing city drains.

Reservoir; no reservation here!

Guadarrama peaks, a lofty sentry

At Plaza de Los Angeles; sipping beer,

Smiling at the leaving and the entry.

He gave us home, free gratis with goodwill

No timetable, at liberty to leave or still to stay

A chalet at the summit of his hill

No yesterday, tomorrow, just today.

True lover of his legacy of Spain

Paradise of pismires, crawling free,

Not anxious for the mists or promised rain

No yearning here to visit salty sea.

We walked with him, this boy of innovation

For miles along the path; Camino Way,

With chat and song and simple recreation

“Enjoy the moment friend; live for today”.

To Spain’s Madrid we travel soon again

To meet this man and those who own his heart

Bianca, Hermann, the little Princess Sarah

And Jack, of course, who plays a special part.

 

Conspiracy.

A path forms, when ground is deemed as granted,

Ground not yet conceded by the stranger
Who scans horizon, land-lie, smells the danger,
Has seen it twice before and has lamented.

The thin-edged wedges of suspicion lofted, start

To raise high ground and vale against me
Already consigned to the paths of purgatory,
Sign says ‘all for hell’ must now depart.

Streams of mirth and death flow side by side

In twin currents of certainty and doubt

Tiring and retiring, tossed about
The man made paddles searching for the tide.

Ground like time is snatched but never mine

But held in memory’s prison for a while
A plastic inch; a rictus, killing smile.
The crime of waste lies waiting down the line.

Can human pupils weep for welcome loss?

Reality caught, can never be outrun,
The minute hand can never be undone
Just heads and tails in every pitch and toss.

Where would years be but for faithful mirror

Narcissus pool fashioned from the sand
Giving, taking, soul mates of the hand
That knows not what is stroke or what is terror.

Still more steal over what belongs to others

Like sun-bred freckles of a tinker’s wife
The promise in the handle of a knife
Conspiracy has no fathers, only mothers.

 

 

 

 

Deception.

Primal peak of pleasure
Piercing sting of pain,
Linger lust of lovers
Reassuring rain.
Scald of rinsing tears
Cleansing scalpel scar
Ring of rash indifference
Label on a jar.

Smile of futile triumph,
Self-deceiving glee,
Hunger after gluttony
Bondage of the free.
Ties inspiring quest
Roots in concrete sand,
Quandary of stillness
Seeking hand in hand.

Diviner of destruction;
Well intentioned will,
Lofty aspirations
Frozen, solid, still.
Waging war for peace
Dancing in the air,
Practising virginity
Quarry in the lair.

Baring shadow secrets
Tumbling latch and lock,
Reeling to a polka
Indifferent to shock.
Ignorance in truth
Quelling peal and bell,
Harmony in discord
Spills from shallow well.





 

The Chinaman

Recently I visited Newcastle Forest to perform a grim task. It fell to me to choose a permanent resting place for my noble pal, China. I picked a spot I know he would have approved of as we spent many a day there in the shadow of the widow-maker. He knew the way well and trod exactly the same forest path on many occasions. I recall wheeling dozens of barrow-loads of oak and beech from this spot to the forest road and he traversed the way with me on each and every occasion.

Ann Marie and Niamh carried him to his final sleeping place and together we buried him with the dignity he truly deserved.

China

Emperor son of wolf, the Chinaman, lies sleeping,
Stretching now at the curve of life's shoulder.
Guarded by the mother of the widow maker
At one with root, sinew and boulder.
All those last year leaves of browning and yellow
Crumpled with wrinkles of wisdom and knowing
The secrets of life, the birthing at death,
The end and beginning, the fading, the growing.

The Achin’ at parting, the briefest goodbye

His lifetime a heartbeat of Nature,
Skips now with his quarry, the good-natured deer
And every innocent creature.
He tramped on the ramp of my conscience
Every harsh word I mightn’t have framed
That was the difference between him and me
Only man deserves to be shamed.   

He’s part of the ether again, as before

Where bright breezes chase little cloud sisters

Into airtight pockets away from the storm

And the stars and the moon echo his whispers.

Nobility’s rays; his own private sun,

Grief and guilt were never his lot

The ash and the oak, the beech and the briar

All guardians of his private plot.

And what to remember and treasure forever

His always affection, his kindness and manner,

His vision and listening without pupil or ear

The heart of his father, the dog with wolf’s banner.

As dainty as the dancer the graceful Nijinsky

To just walk behind him so supple of limb,

The glances, the dances, the style and the prances

He didn’t choose death, she found him.