Stories housed within the soul
exact in every detail,
the deliberate forgetting
of a mind linked to survival
inoperable in the secret register
where every encounter’s sacred
despite the pain or tragedy.
The look on Bobby’s face telling me
our best friend Brendan was dead,
my father’s eyes down
who should have borne the weight;
Brendan’s look the night before,
his cigarettes in a rolled-up sleeve;
a fierceness to his fate
I knew but could not fathom.
Two moments of so many years,
and more the stories of ancestral past
inherited through the blood
or some marvel of the life force
so who they were and all they suffered
would never be forgotten.
Years ago my father and I
walked upon Roscommon Road
and there we met an old woman
in peasant black and ruddy face
her bright eyes shining as she met
the man who should have been her son.
My father’s eyes were down of course,
he would not bear this weight
so I took it as I had learned to do
and looked into her tear-filled face
with all the questions she’d never answer,
happy for the son alive she’d hoped to carry.
One chapter in a secret story,
the library of my soul to guide and witness
his coat and tie and shiny shoes
that kept him from the mud filled yard
where love was lost, one truth abandoned.
I haven’t forgotten to remember Mary
or Roscommon Road, and the place
within her empty womb
where nothing less than life itself
still waited to be born.
Breathtaking!
This one I understand very deeply as I’ve been uncovering my Irish roots that go back to the people of the mists. Unbelievably complicated people, survivors of some of the worst tragedies known. And many unknown. Research helping me to understand the “whys and wherefores” of this dark cloud of sorrow in contrast to the lightness of my spirit. Complicated. And yet, the genes within keep me going regardless of loss. Abandonment that has driven me deeper than genetics, than history, into the absolute truth of myself which is love.
Beautifully written. I love the depth of compassion in this piece. Such a simple phrase, “my father’s eyes were down”, yet it conveys so much. I appreciate your ability to lay bare with brutal honesty (yet remain tender of heart) the contradictions of human interaction. I could say more, but choose to leave a path clear in my consciousness for this poem to further flesh out.
Don…this one is really complex, with lots of shaded meanings and visuals….very good, my friend!
Love, David
Thank you for the enlivening journey with you down Roscommon Road, awakening so much in my soul. In the midst of technology, your words
are consistently a place of remembering for me .. a place of rest,
surrender, and creative thought. We are our stories past, present,
and those yet to be told. How rich Life is!
Don,
This one rambles (I know it’s a journey poem, but I don’t particularly mean it that sense) a bit for me into the prosaic back to the lyrical…I have some poems that are notes from my soul to write something longer, more structured, perhaps as a lyric essay, and this narrative seems to me like that. Pieces of the story are surfaced and suggest whole chapters in a long story. Only you, of course, know whether or not there is something more complete you want to do with either the poem or a story. I would be surprised if you thought this was finished, though!
PS I’m in the middle of preparing spring classes, but one day I will surprise you with a reading of the packet/project you sent me!
Heart capturing of presence, pain and portent.
The bittersweet longings and desires of humanity so deeply contained in this poem. Oh, for the Roscommon Roads we all remember at various time along our journey.
THank you.
Keith
“…the whole motion of our time is from the material to the spiritual…slow as it is, it’s still a pretty huge motion. I don’t think the world is going to leave (us) alone.” [Illusions, Richard Bach). That’s the human perspective, and our human experience.
but…WHO is walking the Roscommon Roads? That’s the big question, regardless of story–every time.
WOW! It touched a place in my heart and I REMEMBERED. I too have walked down Roscommon Road!
Thanks Don, I have walked that Roscommon road as have many- I like that the soul knows its path regardless of the trials and tribulations of the journey- that path is ours to discover and keep sacred. I appreciate that you walk the fine line.
This is one of your best. You have somehow been able to use the poet’s gifts to clothe in words what all of us have hidden within our life stories. You are the friend I know who writes with a golden pen.