Lord, didn't it rain?

[altariel]

Tuesday. Half-arsed excuse for a functioning human being that I am, I had to slink with my tail between my legs over to the library in order to return some spectacularly overdue books. The fine is mighty and still not paid, and it was pissing it down as I trudged over. Afterwards, obviously, I had to go book shopping to cheer myself up, and went to David’s, the Emporium of Pain Relief and Shelter in a Storm. To replace Brendan Kennelly’s The Book of Judas which had lately been returned unread, I picked up his most recent selected verse, Familiar Strangers.

Brendan, bless his socks, made me laugh then cry within the space of five pages. Here’s why. Cut so you can choose your own adventure.


“Still, my favourite encounter was with that most familiar of all strangers, Santa Claus, one darkish December day in Thomas Street. He fixed a long, hard stare on me and said, ‘I think I know you. Tell me this, me ould flower. Were you an’ me in Mountjoy Jail together?’ I gave Santa the most political reply I knew: ‘Not to the best of my recollection, sir.’ It seemed to satisfy him. He jingled on.”

Preface, Familiar Strangers, p. 17.



A Giving

Here in this room, this December day,
Listening to the year die on the warfields
And in the voice of children
Who laugh in the indecisive light
At the throes that but rehearse their own
I take the mystery of giving in my hands
And pass it on to you.

I give thanks
To the giver of images,
The reticent god who goes about his work
Determined to hold on to nothing.
Embarrassed at the prospect of possession
He distributes leaves to the wind
And lets them pitch and leap like boys
Capering out of their skin.
Pictures are thrown behind hedges,
Poems skitter backwards over cliffs,
There is a loaf of bread on Derek’s threshold
And we will never know who put it there.

For such things
And bearing in mind
The midnight hurt, the shot bride,
The famine in the heart,
The demented soldier, the terrified cities
Rising out of their own rubble,

I give thanks.

I listen to the sound of doors
Opening and closing in the street.
They are like the heartbeats of this creator
Who gives everything away.
I do not understand
Such constant evacuation of the heart,
Such striving towards emptiness.

Thinking, however, of the intrepid skeleton,
The feared definition,
I grasp a little of the giving
And hold it close as my own flesh.
It is this little
That I give to you.
And now I want to walk out and witness
The shadow of some ungraspable sweetness
Passing over the measureless squalor of man
Like a child’s hand over my own face
Or the exodus of swallows from the land

And I know it does not matter
That I do not understand.

Preface, Familiar Strangers, pp 22-3.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Love the first one! Comes under the heading of "only in Dublin", I think.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I've been laughing about it all week.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

As if it wasn't bad enough already, having to go to Big Forbidding Building to hand over your books, the weather had to chime in, as well. David's sounds entirely justified. I haven't been for a couple of weeks, and so will probably allow myself a little extra leeway when I do go. ;-)

It's good to see you back here.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The weather was screaming, "You're doomed!" at me.

Good to be back.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I still owe the library sixty quid. *sigh*

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Much sympathy (mine was a bit more).

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Now make sure you read the story that will make you grin.