Saturday, February 4, 2012


“I am Sorry for your Trouble” © Mike Absalom January 6th
2012

I have heard of your late
death.
Let me think bout it,
for this is not news to be
entertained quickly.
It is too near the knuckle.
It is too far from the cold
head.
There will be a removal soon
and a burial hard upon it.
I will come to them when you
do.

I shall walk the long maze
now
and take my afternoon
constitutional
along the magic bóithrín where I have walked for seven
years.
I shall meditate, mostly on
myself,
for Death makes Siamese Twins
of everyone.

This maze is a place of ivy
and rowan
and there are also other
plants
that transgress the fixed
boundaries of logic,
flowering here with
enchantment,
but rooting deep down on the
other side.
They are channels of draíocht and sorcery.

Once there were oaks here.
Those sacred groves were cut
down long ago
and sent in chains to hold up
the roofs of foreign churches.
It is said that our ancestors
belonged to both sides.

I have heard of your late
death.
Today, in the company of
these green messengers,
I shall think about it.
A late death or an early
death,
they bare thinking about.
In the end, Death makes
Siamese Twins of us all.

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