Mud and Bones

Up in the west of ireland on some hillside a few years back bad stormy weather caused a landslide that revealed bones of neolithic settlers, hidden for years. There's a storm almost as bad brewing outside and it reminded me of a poem I wrote ...so I thought I would share...


Mud and Bones

I lie in the dark mud of Connaught
in the cruel rocky earth of the West
where the sun sets low in the evening
and HyBrazil lies just beyond sight
and I am part of your land and your lives,
though you see only the mound of my grave
and the grass growing high above my head
I am the bones of your country, its roots
the anchor of life as you know it
your seed, breed and long generation -
And I lie in the dark mud of Connaught.


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

1.

Where Once Stood Tribes

We like to think our generation is the most evolved, and of our ancestors as primitive; whereas in fact there are standards to which our ancestors adhered, in the light of which we are savages, unreconstructed and illiterate.
"Where Once Stood Tribes" is an expression of loss, for the things our ancestors knew and felt, that we have cavalierly discarded.




Where Once Stood Tribes

Where once stood tribes
who rose and fell
on the bounty of a living land
soul and soil intertwined
One blood, one heart,
of one mind,
muscle and sinew
rock and tree

now stand deserts
raized and mined
farmed not free and filled
with remnants of a glorious past
now dismissed
barbourous land
savage land
free land

Once here ran the young
chasing after quarry
wild whooping youth
training for the fight
with hunt and flight
stone blow
axe fell
arrow flew


Once stood Warriors
honour bound to those
whose small lives fed
whose small bones ground:
love of warrior
for the fallen enemy,
so sweet in pain
life in death
alive in death.

Who can judge
from these degenerate times
the free and brave?
Bearers of ancient honours
honour of soul
of strong arm
of strong back
of keen eye
of fleet foot?

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

1.

Ancestor

This was written in 2005 for a friend who requested a prayer suitable for a remembrance ceremony. Along with Lower Me Down (in the Where The Hazel Falls anthology) this was read at the funerary service. Since then it has been used several times.

Ancestor

If I should die tonight
and my bones laid in the earth
would my voice not be the wind
and the sun my smile?
I am the blood in your veins;
all the lives I have lived
have been, in this way,
transmuted to new life
flowing from your heart to mine.
I am the beat of the Bodhrán
and the touch of the line on water
I am the thought unbidden
the instinct that springs -
If you listen not to me,
then you ignore yourself,
and silence your own voice.
I am the string plucked,
the note quivering
the dream sung by voices
you remember from your cradle.
I am the silent watch of the nights
and the first breath of morning
because you carry me always in your heart

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

1.