Hymn from Her

    can you hear the drums beating us  
     from sickened slumber? 
holy batons—      beating us
    from the numbness of almost living?

the float of petals           confetti my way home 
   the glamour of white wings— 
         release,   cut to life 

speak to the divine in me, little bird
    feathers fell from our wings   
           in the heft of heavy glue 

there isn’t enough infinity of sky  
          for the horizons our wings crave 
    the carved depths of interiority— 
            mirrors how angels sing
      
love morphs her beautiful forms 
       person to person,      death to life,
            generations skip by—       

             there it is again,  
    a knowingness—     a returning love       
         mothers a frosted grief  

 surrendered streams drink mountain springs 
    the bends we couldn't see past
such majesty      beyond— 
       in this whistling, glorious life
   
she opens her mouth to Sea    
    chooses her fate— 
                 magnetised 
she opens out        to be free 

 

Once we have a why we can bear any how. How purpose and love keep us alive. How love transfers through people, how it never goes away.

This is for the Pilgrims we are. The healing we need. This combustible, twisting, turning glorious life.

I saw a documentary last night, ‘Blue Road’, the life of Edna O’Brien, It was powerful and brilliant. She was ahead of her time in the 60s and 70s in Ireland. She was a much admired and dismissed Irish writer. I found her story powerful. It’s still running through me. Go see it if you can!