A New Year

Of course, every day is the start of a new year
That ends the next time that day rolls around
There’s nothing special about January 1st.
It’s not even a solstice.  Just a day.

Still, as I teeter up to the far edge of December
And peer down at the white new calendar page,
I do feel a little of the acrobat’s fear –
The fear that turns to exultation
 

When you jump.

The Invincibles

Plundered, conquered, colonized,

Their language outlawed, culture flayed;

Their own land rented back to them

At back-and-spirit-breaking rates;

Made to endure war, hunger, Protestants;

Driven into the rocky West;

Failed by the one crop they needed;

Scattered to the four winds,

The Irish have persisted – even smiled –

As if acknowledging a handsome joke 

They can't believe you haven't twigged to yet.

Nor have they only smiled. Listen, now.

If you hear fiddle music on the wind,

As mournful as a wolf, or merry as May,

The odds are good you have some Irishman,

Long dead or gaily living on, to thank.

The Irish and the Sea

God, how the sea pounds in upon the West!

It comes in roaring, like a beast unchained,

To bash itself to pieces on the rocks,

Again, again, again, and then again.

The whole Atlantic in its fury breaks

Its teeth against the battlements of Clare

And wears deep gouges in her fabled cliffs,

As if it meant to dig the island up

And carry her across to Germany,

Or Poland, or the marches of the East,

Depositing the Irish in some strange,

Undreamed-of land, where they, no doubt, would shrug,

And go about their business, as they do.

It takes more than an elemental god

To shake the Celtic temper; after all,

They’ve had the ocean pounding on their door

For more than six millennia, and they

Still haven’t stirred from field and fireside

To let the poor damn soggy bastard in.

A Blessing After Rain

When the sun comes out on Ireland,

It's God's own Grace at play;

When the sun comes out on Ireland,

All weariness melts away;

There's twittering in the boughs then,

And fragrance on the breeze,

And glistening in the hedges,

And music among the trees;

You may even see a rainbow 

As the old rain scatters light;

You may hear a fairy singing;

You may see a dream take flight.

Be wise, and seize the moment,

And join in the general song;

When the sun comes out on Ireland,

It's never for very long.

Lament for Old Things

The beautiful old buildings 

Are only for the cows –

And maybe the occasional ghost 

Who howls at the broken walls.

The living Irish make their homes 

In blank tan boxes, without history –

A bit like the faces of Irish girls,

So makeup-caked they all but disappear.

Prosperity has its dangers. This is one:

That you might lose that rugged detailing

That makes a house a house, a face a face.

Of course, it's not my business.

I'm a tourist here.

The houses weren't put there to please my eye,

And neither were the faces. Even so,

I see how wild the tameless landscape is,

And then how bland the village, and I sigh,

Lamenting a sad beauty that was never mine.

Plastic Horses

Some people, you drop a word in them like a coin,

And they whir into life like a plastic horse,

Surging and tinkling, bright with festive joy.

Other people are collection boxes.

No matter how many coins you cram in there,

You never get a song out of them,

Or anything but a begrudging clank.

You never know which is which, of course,

Until your coin is already spent.

You have to be resigned to lose a few

Or even a few thousand, in the hope

That it will all be worth it when the horse 

Springs into motion; and, of course, it will.

Yeats's Grave

He lies where he determined to,

Rescued from the hospitable French 

Who would have gladly kept his bones –

Those long white poet's bones of his –

And claimed him, as their wine-warm shores

Have claimed so many Irish men.

This one came home, though –

To the home of his child's heart,

Where fairies whispered from the mountaintop

And came by night to kindle him in dreams.

This one came home, to say a few last words,

In the form of a carving on a plain stone.

"Horseman," says the stone, "pass by,"

And speaks of the virtue of a cold eye –

But what stone-graven heart could be 

Cold in the grip of the reverie

That comes when facing a hero's tomb?

And what fool horse would dare presume 

To pass this dear and sainted place

With no pause of thanks to the human race?