Estrangement

In the soft grey light of their awakening dawn
it began by simple means and unintended
easy stages. Sadly, they were ignorant
of its advancing, pernicious existence.

Each day they would walk happily together
while the imperceptible diverging of their path
was cunningly hidden, though they were
side by side in shared knowledge.

One step, one year, one lifetime,
soon they would be so far apart
their separateness would then
be finally understood by both.

From either end of that long corridor
they looked back towards each other
wondering at how they became so distant,
not worrying at how to become rejoined.

In the never-ending confusion of this conflict,
alienation became their abiding collaborator,
as the long years of indifference made their
lives more liveable and less caring for those others.

Their progeny willingly accepted the myths of
distrust spreading quickly with great assurance.
Lives lived in ignorance enhanced the mounting
strength of this powerful, destructive schism.

It has been far too long for any repair, the eons
have made sure, the distance too vast and
the estrangement complete from those companions,
who with us, once roamed this planet in harmony.

Exile Dreaming

Raindrops are dream carriers.
They fall and are walked on.
Dreams and raindrops,
all life is nourished by them.
Far away lies a dream,
will it fall from the skies?
O how the clouds were searched
and none was there
not even rain sometimes.
Beautiful rain, rain
to wash green into Eire hills.
Rain to make time pure,
while clouds travel the world,
like a dreamer never seeing
the new lands of the lonely.

Exiles are human raindrops,
soaking into the deserts of indifference,
mixed with the abundance of others
while seeking a new self. Are they
escaping from failure or success?
Some clouds float carelessly,
like lost butterflies, dancing
from sod and sweet flowers
to strangeness wherein they die
and more further go across
all the wide world to touch
other lands and seas for a time,
to sleep soundly and dream

On some Australian shore
or by red dust desert,
where wild sands whistle in the wind,
the tunes of loneliness. And others
upon the highest peak in far Tibet,
they think of home and cry a tear,
for Baile Ata Clait, that city
of ten thousand dreams and more,
or do they sail a ship into the
calling arms of Christ upon a hill
and mix in Rios joust?
Is this the cause that is made to die?
or some forgotten deed
a century gone by is thought,
while walking through some springtime field,
in some forgotten corner of the world.

In time, the dream of home
will shout around the world
being heard by each to each.
Then move they will once more,
to see again, with dimmed eyes of
distance things old and new,
friends forgotten
and remembered all again.
Ah! but distance moves so slowly,
time forever takes its hour
and all those wishes fail to make it real.
So, dreams like raindrops will come anew;
a kind of thinking in a half suspended mind,
that’s an exile dreaming, (I am sure),
for in that thinking and that dreaming,
are my hopes,
with all the prayers I say,
that one day,
I shall be amongst you once again.
Hills and fields of Ireland,
home to me.