Rejected Verses 81-90

 81. O Ireland how dearly I love you

 

O Ireland how deeply I love you

As I sail away from your shores

Looking back, I get the picture

Of a country that means much more

Than beaches and valleys and hills

It’s the people that inhabit this isle

The people who weep and who smile

In times both happy and troubled.

 

Keeping an eye out for the weak ones

Rallying round the afflicted

Communities embrace their vulnerable

Never forgetting the wounded.

 

We’re certainly far from perfect

But comfortable with our small sins

Maybe we possess a tough skin.

Largely untroubled by fashion

Aware of the failings of nature.

Embracing the odd and the outspoken

By roadsides, in shops and in pubs

Aren’t we all a bit strange in a way?

In each pub there’s always a chair

In each home there’s always a spare.

 

 

 

 

 

82. She is my other half

 

She is my other half

At times better, at times worse

But always there to complement

A lonely body and a lonesome soul.

 

Ours a see-saw union,

One up, the other down

We stumble along life’s tightrope

And stay aloft miraculously.

 

Learning without a lesson

Walking without a map

Frustration dissolved by laughter

Middle-age its own reward.

 

Gentleness a signature

Compromise not always

But enough to preserve

And protect the union.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 84.Our Lady of Victories

 

Our Lady of Victories is pealing

It’s great big bells revealing

Age old hymns from her steeple

Daily raising the spirits

Rising above the virus

A clarion call in earnest

When we feel at our lowest.

 

Across the fields they ring

Past parked cars and garden swings

As people open curtains

And closed windows just to welcome

The age old bells that sound so fresh

So timely in our crisis.

 

Down the Glen the music rolls

Back in answer rings St Paul’s

From a handsome church

On a wealthier road

The Church of Ireland

Returns the call.

 

A summons to folk of every faith

Offering a timely invitation

To stop and pray and pause awhile

And join an invisible chorus

Across the nearby parishes.

Gods echo in twenty-twenty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

85. Nodding off on a garden chair

 

He was ancient before he was old

Nodding off on a garden chair

Aged but barely fifty

Left by a stroke impaired.

 

His handsome face tanned dark

While wearing his thermal vest

Covering his creamy arms

Protecting his pure white chest.

 

An unfinished crossword lay lying

Where sleep had overcome

In the hazy summer sunshine

Of leafy suburban Churchtown.

 

Never a word of complaint

Never a touch of self-pity

His eyes always brightly focused

On Rome, the eternal city.

 

Never he wavered a moment

In love for his Church and his Pope

Now in the sleep of the just

In faith and in love and in hope.

 

In appreciation of Kevin Andrew Murray.

1920-1980.

 

 

 

 

 

86. Hush little birdie

 

He was ahead of the news

He was ahead of the day

There was nothing of note

That he didn’t say.

 

He texted and tweeted

He vented, expleted

He puffed and he panted

He screamed and he ranted.

 

He shouted at people

He never would meet

He’d arm wrestle strangers

With many a tweet.

 

He felt it important

To make his voice heard

He felt so contented

At his followed thread.

 

Til one day he died

As his finger tapped send

It was over like that

No chance to amend.

 

 

 

 

87. Prisoner 4859 Auschwitz

 

What’s in a number?

What’s in a name?

Did hard work free over time

Prisoner forty-eight fifty-nine?

 

Witold Pilecki, executed in Warsaw

Died with a bullet

To the back of the head

Shot by the men he had led.

 

Aged a mere forty-seven

In May forty-eight

His life ended by comrades

Not the Nazis he fought.

 

Let us remember the million who died

Gassed past a sign Arbeit Macht Frei

Forget not the heroes like Witold

Who told the world of a ghastly hell.

 

If History has forgotten Pilecki

Or struggles recalling his name

We shall stubbornly repeat

His memory remains the same

 

He may have died as he lived

In a prison of man’s creation

But his spirit lives on in the stars

And in the soul of a new generation.

 

 

 

 

 

88. Five fifty-five

 

Five minutes for Quakers

To sit down awhile

To lay down the book

To lean back and smile.

 

At five fifty-five

Before the bell peals

Before the news breaks

On our busy tv’s.

 

We sit down in silence

We join in communion

With the people of Ireland

Our daily reunion.

 

A time to remember

The far and the near

Family and friends

We’d love to have here.

 

The poor and the hungry

The living and dead

The wide global family

Our village and our Meeting.

 

Now the Angelus sounds

And we are joined by the others

The sad and the joyful

Our sisters and brothers.

 

 

 

 

 

89. Dance

 

Round and round we dance and spin

You turn out and I turn in

I hold your waist and you hold mine

Twirling, turning, spinning, weavin’.

 

Our bodies touch and embrace

Then withdraw, extend the chase

Drawing in and drawing out

Quickening first then slowing pace.

 

In those moments we touch and feel

Feelings that seem really real

Captured moments that will last forever

Dreamy dreams we share together.

 

 

 

 

 

90. Death in a time of plague

 

He died at home in bed

In the check pyjamas

His wife had bought

Some twenty years before

In a sale in Dunne’s Stores.

 

*********************

 

He slipped away peacefully

The end came mercifully

The coroner will probably

Confirm Covid Nineteen.

 

He was a good man

Who stole from no one

Who paid his taxes

Who asked for nothing.

 

And nothing he received

He who paid his dues

Not too rich and not too poor

For society to take heed.

 

Invisible now, and silent too

He slipped ‘tween the cracks

As no light crept through

An everyman, like me, like you.

 

Because of the virus

No final hurrah

No big final wave,

Just a silent salute.

 

And so he departs

From the place he called home

To a grave by the sea

With a granite headstone.