Anam Cara

Taken

i.m. my father, Paddy O’Donohue,

died June 21st 1979

What did you see

when you went out

into the cold region,

where no name is

spoken or known,

where no one is

welcomed or lost,

where soon the face is

closed and erased?

Could you touch

the black hearts

of rocks hanging

outside their shells?

Were you able

to sense the loss

of colours, the yellows

and cobalt blue that you loved,

the honey scent of seasoned hay

you carried through the winter

to cattle on the mountain?

Could you hear no more

the shoals of wind swell wild

within the walls of Fermoyle,

or be glad to sense the raw rhyme

as those rosaries of intense limestone

claim the countenance

of every amber field

from weather and time?

Or was everything dream-

framents stored somewhere

in a delicate glass

on which a dead hand landed?

Did you plod through

the heavy charcoal shadow

to a sizzling white bush,

stop and repeat

each of our names

over and over,

a terrified last thought

before all thought died?