Last impressions

  Their ashen faces Their ashen faces in the waiting rooms This injured army of the ill As they make their weary way On their path to Calvary.  Once entered, no healthy exit now, For patients eking out a few months more A constant round to doctors rooms Taking tickets to be seen again  A life of pills and potions Of procedures big and small Trudging on a treadmill slowly Tired eyes turned downwards only.  Grey lives lived in the shadows Quietly spent in obedient queues A world of bandages and care Walkers, strollers and wheelchairs.  Loyal wives guide their spouses Negotiate the complex system Take note of dates of different doctors File new prescriptions in old handbags.  He left the tent in blizzard snow Captain Oates he had to know He would never see the tent again He had no wife to guide him home. 

  Corbawn Drive Corbawn Drive you are my darling In the embrace of leafy Shankill Close to the sea and close to the woods That lead to the parks and the trees.  For ten years now we have known you And travelled your paths Strolled in seasons of joy Walked in seasons of sorrow.  As soft and mild as a baby’s breath Welcoming the stranger Safe haven for old neighbors Unwilling to leave this parish. Parents with children cycling bikes On roads bereft of traffic The first to arrive in the seventies Now silver haired cutting grass.  Time stands still for most of the year Out of harms way, under the sun Birds calling out from fifty year old trees Framing the blue sky above.  The news came through we were hoping and fearing The sale’s going ahead six weeks from today Six weeks to take leave of old friends and dear neighbors Look to the future in a modern new build.  Life is a road that veers left and then right Rarely bears straight despite our best might No regret...

Swimming   My mother was ambitious for her children. Spare time was never ‘spare’, it was there to be used. Used constructively. From the tender age of nine I was despatched on the bus into town in the days after Christmas to attend drawing classes in the National Gallery, (actually the first year may have been held in the Hugh Lane Gallery (note to self, must revisit)). With the same zeal my mother brought me swimming to the public baths in Tara Street and some years later to the Iveagh Baths (which for my sins I financed the reform into a gym in the early noughties). My first memories were of my nostrils being assailed by the smells of urine and chlorine. I am not sure which was worse. And one is reminded of the story of the boy peeing from the top diving board. That was the least of it        In the late fifties we would head in the summer to the West on holidays en famille. I have vague memories of changing into cold togs on wet Donegal beaches. It was not a...

Saving Lives from drowning     Before I finish the chapter, I will turn to the people I have saved from the sea and in the swimming pool. I mentioned our family sentimental journey in 1969 just before I joined the mysterious Legionaries. As always, we spent a few days in Sligo where we had the use of my Uncle Bernie’s house on the Strandhill Road. Strandhill Beach was famous in Sligo for its beauty and its danger. My grandmother absolutely forbade her children swimming there. There had been numerous tragedies in the first half of the 20 th  century. However on a sunny afternoon the temptation proved just too much and my two sisters and I accompanied our parents to Strandhill. We were under strict instructions not to go beyond knee deep. I wandered out to waist deep. A sunny day. No wind. Calm sea. And then disaster struck. I became aware of someone further out to sea calling. It was the life guard who had rescued a young lad, aged about five and he was tiring and asked fo...

  Prospecting for good Some travel longer and farther  Into the Western sunset Prospecting for gleaming gold Beyond the mountains of Promise.  Some instead prospect for good Celebrating where they find it Near or far, in friendly fields Or in places you’d never think of.  Finding good in every man Friend or enemy,    or stranger Not just those within our clan But in the outer reaches.  To trust in others, bring out the best To smile and see the world smile back  To love without measure or careful caution To embrace with careless abandon.  To spend without knowing the cost  To give without seeking stuff back To view without cold calculation Reflecting God’s gift in the first place.  Heaven is just here and now Not hidden away in the future  Let’s feel the good beneath our feet  Here and there and everywhere. 

  The Train   The train of life, it trundles on Not just for some but for everyone Some get off and some get on A few too early and a few too late.  Every journey has a finish At times delayed and sometimes late But nothing surer on this passage There is an end to every trip.  Lean right back, enjoy the journey Long or short accept the ride Look out the window, see the fields Amazing colors in the sky.  You’ll meet some people in the carriage Appearing different but all the same Gentle pilgrims on the journey The traveled track feels longer than ahead.  Some will hope to travel better Up with folks in posh first class Some are happy for the gift Aware we all arrive the same.  Some are anxious for the finish Unsure of how the journey ends Some just welcome every station Enjoy each moment as it lands. There is a ticket checker to be sure But no one has to leave the train  Before their time, before their station  Unless ill fortune intervene....