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A Poem for Michael and Christopher, Act Two, Door into the Dark, Postscript, Seamus Heaney, The Underground
P.S. Codladh sámh, Seamus Heaney.
Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit. There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. And so, my fellow graduates, make the world before you a better one by going into it with all boldness. You are up to it and you are fit for it; you deserve it and if you make your own best contribution, the world before you will become a bit more deserving of you. ~ From his remarks to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduates, May 12, 1996 Dear Seamus, It’s eight years…
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Aging, Art, Children's Books, Coming of age, Death of parent, Education, Fatherless daughters, learning to drive, Memoir, Milestones, Mother Daughter Relationship, Mr. Jones, Poetry, Rituals, The Gone of You
just walk away – remembering her last first day of school
WALKING AWAY – Cecil Day Lewis It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day – A sunny day with leaves just turning, The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play Your first game of football, then, like a satellite Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away Behind a scatter of boys. I can see You walking away from me towards the school With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free Into a wilderness, the gait of one Who finds no path where the path should be. That hesitant figure, eddying away Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem, Has something I never quite grasp to…
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Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Cadillac Ranch, Coming of age, Drive All Night, The Price You Pay, The River, The River Tour 2016
independence day again
It’s Independence Day, and I’m thinking about fireworks, the kind that exploded into the sky over Slane Castle on a summer evening in 1985 when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were making their Irish debut. Close to 100,000 of us made the pilgrimage through the sleepy – and disapproving – village of Slane to see The Boss. Between assurances of increased security and a promise – as yet unfulfilled – that this would be the last rock concert to disturb them, the residents had been placated. Even the weather cooperated with the kind of sun-drenched day the Irish pray for. Everybody was young that day, even the crotchety old…
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Act Two, Castledawson, Family, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Mother's Day, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Rites of passage, Rituals, Seamus Heaney
and still we dance . . . happy mother’s day
In Ireland, it is Mother’s Day and it is also still impossible to visit my mother and the place that made her. A phone call later will help minimize the miles between Castledawson and a village in Mexico, me falling easily back into the comforting colloquialisms of home, but it won’t be the same as surprising her the way I used to do with a bunch of fresh flowers that she will immediately arrange in a crystal vase on the hall table. Even if I were able to fly to Belfast, I would still have to stay away from her, COVID restrictions in place for the foreseeable future hoping to tame…
