GO GENTLE. . .

GO GENTLE

my father is dying
I stop at the airport church
prepared to pray

despite my unbelief
raise my hands and eyes
to a cloudy Heaven

but Heaven is not
prepared to hear
this prodigal son

I hold his hand
as lies dying
this good man

he the only religion
I could believe in
I pray to him

"Go gentle...." I tell him
stroke his dear face
". . .leave this suffering behind."

****

I A FUTURE YET TO HAPPEN

de Da
being all of 19
and me not even thought of

**

MEANWHILE ON A PLANET FAR FAR FROM HERE

the aliens gather around
the crashed spaceship
the first human they have encountered

***

I remember having this just inside the door by the potted plant in Bray so that every time I opened the door I would be greeted by my Da before he knew me...or had made me. "Hiiya Da!" I would always say to the framed phoot. And the framed photo would always without fail answer back "Howya Dónall son!"

I told him of this and he said he would like to see it so I took a snap of it that morphed photo and plant. He said "What's with all the vegetation?" So I told him of how he was the first astronaut that had reached the planet Plant and that the natives all gathered around the crashed spaceship to have a look at the first earthling they had ever encountered.

He looked at me and said "Would ya make us a cup of tea Dónall son...I feel I need a cup of tea after all that!

I the unbeliever
pray for my dying father
Heaven refuses to listen

****

I was wondering why I was attracted to Stuart’s sculpture and found I had been looking at her work all my little life for she had done the teak stations of the cross in my hometown church of St. Brigid’s in the Curragh Camp. From being a child stained with the music of coloured glass and my soul being wafted away incense to a Heaven I then believed until to the now of this in cold Dublin rain going back to the scene of the same wooden statues in my own hometown church.
Imogen Stuart’s sculpture ‘Madonna Fountain’ in the centre of the atrium landscaping of the church at Dublin Airport. -The Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven.

I would steal in here both in my comings and goings as my mother, my brother and finally my father were dying. I of little faith would pray for their lives but it was all to no avail or plead to be taken in their stead. I even prayed to Shakespeare...

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate
I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate

But the Almighty doesn’t do bargains with my universe. Neither does Shakespeare.