And I Danced

All packed up and ready to flee,

I left my unloved room for the last time,

walked across the hall and down

the stairs, then paused outside the opened

study door of that half-wit monk.

An argument is in full swing.

(How perfect! Does it ever stop?)

A red-faced peer is remonstrating

with Fr. Half-wit, but he stops

and turns his head as I appear.

‘I’m leaving now!’ I almost sing,

‘And never shall return! Farewell!

Adieu! And toodle-pip to all!’

My red-faced former comrade smiles;

replies in kind; the argument resumes.

I had no words left for that place,

and so I danced. I danced across

the gravel. I danced down the drive.

I danced towards the waiting coach.

I danced away from all those things.

Relic

'un objet trouvé' from my father's notebook
(from Duino Elegies: First Elegy
by Ranier Maria Rilke, with thanks to 
Colm Niland for sourcing it)

Maybe what’s left for us is some

tree on a hillside we can look at

day after day, one of yesterday’s

streets, and the perverse affection of

a habit that liked us so much

   it never let go.

Look Forward Now

The final act,

The big reveal:

Complete the turn

Of this life’s wheel.

To find out what

It is to know.

The past reset.

Move on, now. Go.

Look forward now.

Graveside Poem

for Lorraine

and in memory of our father, Christopher Niland (1940-1991)

I stood there

at my father’s grave

for the first time,

while the rain soaked my clothes.

The poem which I’d meant to write

before I had arrived

remained unwritten;

I’d found I didn’t have the words,

and so I stood there

at my father’s grave,

and listened.

My sister asked,

‘Do you need some time alone?’

I wasn’t ready,

so I put my arm across her shoulder

and we stood there

at our father’s grave,

together.

Chris spoke, and said,

‘This is the end of a very long journey,’

and after I’d asked to be alone

I felt some chasm close;

I felt a feeling

deeper than the grave

that lay before me.

Tears and rain became one,

and in the almost silence

the words I could not find

arrived and spoke their truth

I was lost to you