For Ronan Mac Aongusa, Transparent years (a poem of UCD)

For Ronan, for 25 years.



Transparent Years

25 years ago
On the concourse of UCD
Or hanging in the students union
We were arrogant and lost
In impossible measures

Transparent in our voices
Ideals worn with cynical pride
Titling at dragons and chasing dreams
Angst and alcohol, side by side

25 years ago,
you became a sentinel in my life
prompting me when I stumbled
one of the foundations
of who I am.

We have both made our journeys
In miles, in thought, in dream or deed
Each one ending in our reunion
Friendship it seems, is our only need.

1.

Untitled Landscape

How do you see me? he asked
I paused. At nineteen how do you answer that?
How do you say, I cannot describe you?

He was, we were,
wild beauty rocks and mountains and waterfalls
or we were urban decay wasteland and wire fence

I remember those days through a haze of nostalgia
the least of them pulsates like a beating heart
lifeblood of experience

I was unknown. You were unspoken
He was unformed. She was unbroken.
We were untitled landscapes.

1.