Death and the Maiden Page 2

	DEATH AND THE MAIDEN PAGE TWO (PAGE ONE)
		DEATH AND THE MAIDEN 1984 and the letter told you to pull yourself together and named you Katy for the old days For Kathleen Smyth of Attymass the cafe by the water was becoming shabby its season almost over restless and waiting fidgety as the formal anxiety of leaves I served at the banquet heyday and every table flowed with honey my untried fervour was wooed into folds of starched white linen and high Sunday tea Easter rose after twenty years from the dosed shine of marble only a straw perpetual sunlight for dreams where unlit people move as shadows walk close to the wall the wind will not blow cold there I hold your hand though you see with eyes out of this world out of this night and all your dreams awake clamouring with the voices of tired children I have traced the letters of illuminated signs and seen the sutures of the night bum into neon angels death lies between the unreal shadow and its dissolution my mother was afraid of cemetery flowers and omens in blossoms of the lilac bloomed world without end rain is falling softly in spring you are searching for something you cannot find though more than once you pass the open door time stalls in black squall rain lets its indignation fall on Beckett Street ancient doorways open sepia within the living seaming colour fluctuate moments of surrender and defeat frail as life when light strikes to tremble into dust lost in your acceptance timeless as the pledged sun and death for the knowledge of good and evil from steep sides of a cobbled ginnel steam flows as rain it sighs for the moment it dies 1 hold your hand in steam only in the ginnel can time iet go I have seen you among the women returning and you were serene among them a woman listening in a morning throng far beyond them and you so much alive never so much alive as then walking over water between a shoreline and the sea and the land flowed with milk and honey as you wove leaves of red and gold into destiny Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and you so far beyond me that remorse was only endless at the end of eternity endless as music heard upon a keyboard unreachable as grace unreachable as you walking over water lily lily you see the white hair of a woman streaming why can you not see me lily lily I feel out of this world I listen to the quarrel of your departure love was never like this i stand behind my fathers chair and begin to look at you why have I no answer for your unspoken why ! know we are free as the rains uncertainty on the cobbled stones of a city night it falls where it will with the light we are living yet helpless as livid shadows of these stones this is the equilibrium of rain where shadows move as they must for the light darts until it dies your mouth has fallen open your words unlearn their language your eyes have seen such sound as only the mind with its first cry can understand you shall outstare yourself you shall not supplicate again you thrilled us with the lost Titanic your relatives booked as steerage but did not go in the end at the last moment you would not look back your head is bowed away from the pillow you remember a time when grandma said they've only patched you up lost as the eyes are the lost words of a book you hold as refuge you hear the first wind call softly to its leaves you hold his hand insignificant as these and snow is laughing in his eyes and curling in his hair still for you were the snow bride there I'll take you home when the hills are fresh and green those autumn leaves of red and gold I youst to know and your mind the colour of the fractured marcasite darkest stone at the crossroad runs sheerest rain over the stones downward amber light seams the runnels of the night and darkness without was darkness within rain was through the both of them it rose through night stone rising from night rain only a night blur of amber darker than darkness a mirror in the dark you come to your destination as a woman unweeping with knowing not of children nor any thing of this world in refuge a woman unforming a fugitive in the sun will run at the random of his own unlimning at the crossroads once a woman came and the stones were amber water my dearest dature Kathleen after a long while i been thinking what was rong i am always dreming of yo and the children i Hope you are as in By times i am here all alone in my one House i often think of the times i youst to trip over i youst to like to goe to your House but will it ever come again that you would come this summer what a time it is here no one of my Famly would live in Ireland now dont noe Kathleen it is lonly here no one to taike too no one lefte the are all gon away it is rite emegration to England be as good as you can the world can find us all out no one coming or going our road now it is very lonly in Ireland the are better off we all hafte to goe Kathleen no one at me only god and Blesod mother what did i doo to all it is Hard Kathleen to live anywhere whout mony there is no mony here only dool and old penicens i am getting 2 pound a wake and i am not so Bad Hoping you Kathleen you will soone be all rite Mama to all a woman watches from a Sunday boat lonely among children a shoreline seen at the last reach running to horizon on the manifest unmoving causality of the sea and trees rose into June such depths of high unbroken water beyond sunlight and beyond gold the green leaves were engulfed beyond time you the embarkation of a girl lonely among children where is my spirit now so many so many are the nights and I have been a mother and a fugitive how shall I run from them bread is the staff of life and the leaves burn in the sun along the shoreline converging to a far cafe and you will disembark there for leaves are on the water and the day is done piecemeal as my soul the living tracery of your death man shall not live by bread alone He will give his angels charge of you alive in the hands of an unsure boy who dreams a surgeons dream my brother is a maker of illuminated signs this is the way his nightmare dreaming wheel is held at bay snow horses gallop hooves of delirium one way over my last horizon a rainbow flashed kings ransome earths comers on grandmas brooch and they were but the silver stones of marcasite I trailed chain links in slow procession of kings long after and she was a tiller of the ground a gatherer of peat for most of fifty years she drew her life to name a rooks anvil I never knew what she meant she stayed when you were away the lightning and the thunder almost touched dont be afeard if it comes it'll take the both of us on their hands they will bear you up primitive incongruous and catholic black her kid gloves they sent her back at the end of summer ever/things changed a white horse canters now on the billboard where it stood northwards expressionless desolate as white stuccoed on these thirties buildings the corner eagle flames on painted wings for years he stared unruffled grey as fixed stone only the written sign seen through the railings of my school remains white stone Curtis for store equipment at the crossroads once a woman came and the stones were amber water ! saw you alone among a crowd full of girls and you were not like any of them my daughter I beheld you as you-will behold me these words will stay long after this crowds vanishing away for you spoke as a mother about to leave all her children behind forever you take my hand a last time we are women walking together and the boat was full of Sunday people drifting into stillness among them you become the young infinity of a gin watching death upon the water manifold only as leaves that fall along a June afternoon and green depths rose over your ruin such darkness from light came without wind without rain and all your children left in disarray tell me what you know bread is the staff of life and you diffident in your day barefoot for the hurry of bundled peat gathered in fear your time astray consumed in flames of a schoolhouse fire once they brought you back from the dead those Irish furies chanted over you bewildered the face of a limbless doll they woke you into faces of your children I'll be glad when theyre all grown up who can tell if you steered your ship or your night was scuttled by stars of hell you stoop for the gathering of days you saw the giants causeway tumble down time with unleashed impulse pulls the joystick round where is the rage of your own red heart walk close to the wall the wind will not blow cold there 1 hold your hand against the white desolation of stone where refuge was surrender survival but the wind upon a wall your ruin ever shall be for at the casting of the spirit down life is barter brought to deaths consanguinity darkness holds its own control within the darting of the light every dissolution flows as rain lily I feel out of this worrld this side of life the end is but the known unknown over spaces of the night neons shadow blazed with rain colour pulse of certainty I shall not know again nothing survives beyond a moment or the spirits letting go let there be light though shadow ever shall remain the garden gate was open upon the morning I came through into a world more high and white than I could know silence on that road was deeper than snow deeper than light I took my prize from the dark though unbearable moons pull me down I watch snow falling impossible want waits on me I walk the shadow the kaleidoscope hurtling always on a knife edge the window this side of silence and the streets hung with triangles of red and blue waving free as their symmetry airless tardy as organ music of the early fifties while shale of high black hills crumbled into silver from a leftover moon and children under star light and gas light as men to become at the far side of a street cry endless rites of capture and flight utmost the shadows at the time of abandon or a green world seen through a great Victorian sideboard brooched silver wrinkled black on astrakhan rain walls rose sunless shadows and the near sky caught a pinnacle wrought from the black spears of clothes posts from tumult to renew the untouched flowers whose colours grew unwithered from the green unshone of privet leaves the fire on a featherbed beaten by the wide span of my fathers hand I open a box of ribbon spools only the touch of their tin black silk is sure old words of an old woman not to be assuaged you get what youre given and no more empty red of a June day I hold the dry stem hollow of your resting or your ruin and the corner stones of granite black without end rain ran once down Regent Street relentless yellow floodwater flowing without light out of darkness there is a parcel that is too heavy only the letters before me have any meaning A or B become unbearable simplicity words heard at the one time the first time the last time lost words addressed within a station for refuge is not to the fugitive a beginning or an end random the escape from this world random the captured shadow the space between pursuer and pursued isolation nothing can redeem nor remorse assuage at the heart there is no refuge from the heart no release from your words or your voice addressed within a station there is a parcel that is too heavy there is a parcel that is too heavy cornerstones of granite black without end plunge into transitory depths at the end of infinity where crowned illusory white queens stare through my window and the earth moving underfoot unearthed once such rich maternity the recoiling moisture of young worms hewn flesh moving for to live was to break life to run or to remain I fear life more than I fear myself the queens are dissolved their jewels have fallen away bricks were spurting ochre into crevices the day we passed with load upon load and coal dust showed over white stucco the white impassive stone of Torre Road Station and every one was red unbroken soundness to link with another and mortar that tore some few bore cracks to the core I watched days drift on glass unstrung unstill as only the stillness of roof birds somewhere in the middle dark sounds from two worlds disappeared somewhere in the middle dark beyond an iron bedstead wall the moldering reach of our back world filtered green with sunless shadow privet roots enclosed trimmed still flowers and to the last corner at the edge of stone the fused walls closed silent words within rain cornerstones of granite black without end the light was extinguished from a floral glass bowl to remain a natural day a solstice to bear rudimentary stillborn the night out of darkness or the darkest day a room contained infinity to become beyond horizon a lasting sheetfold above me transfixed the unlit levels of the sea midsummer awry among the marigold pierced geraniums to the heart let blood to broach a brick brocade and emerald emblazoning passing yet as the phosphorous legendary shamrock ribbon an open door open upon itself an open doorway open only upon itself no threshold between the hold of the dark and the light hold unlit the depths of a mirrors horizon or the shadow beyond its own threshold resolved beyond reflection fire on a featherbed beaten by the wide span of my fathers hand between the unreal shadow the fire and its dissolution fairground horses run upon the night dissolving into neon light without darkness light without shadow my father built with loosened sun and bricks pulled from old slums were walls of children wild rain crackled fire on a tarmac roof when my father pulled it down bricks opened red the unreal day he unpicked every one gold seamed in mantle flow and tongues of tanged serpents stifled under feet of sandalled stone Sister Theckla strides alone her shadow sheds into black of her woven robe black as the cross on her moon white heart fragile was her wimple fold as snow in May Mary stands enthroned weeping blue among her flowers rayed as the sun her red heart bids me come on paper sheer as a heel on a serpents head I press my hand to scribble rich as iron shone with blacklead and we shall build a house from these stones every one unbroken soundness to link with another apart and silent you toiled for the sake of piety and work and tipped your cap at the mention of the dead once at dawn under are light and police watch and the critical birds for ceremony you exhumed a murdered man let the Lethean river run you were the churchs funeral man and the ulcer is fermenting it threatens to erupt to spill over every moment and the axe thats for them the landlord and his crew when they come you cannot cry for your freedom nor laugh at your folly father of my first years irretrievable voices in the airless garden overflowed vacuity only the sea outside this high Victorian Sunday holds without meaning without movement within the colourless undark haze of a Homsea garden how shall I put my shadow down without movement within this incombustible haze how shall I come entire or hold without meaning out of the sea upward chalk high military stone rose incandesced above me moon white crenetations without shadow light within light or the breakwater breaking darkness without reflection to wake to find something beyond darkness held and left behind fused without sunlight sea parallels within a frieze outside horizon a stifled ochre foreground was soldered inanimate blue unreal converging blue unreached by those who mostly looked outward from the sea out of the depths when rain waters rose over the world little black Quibba wept at the emptiness of things 0 Mary we crown Thee with blossoms oblique the brief equinoctial day I put my shadow down out of the depths Lord hear my voice silent as the silence from this frieze or an unlit animated ferns wheel upon a neon shadow people looking outward from the sea from the sand let my cry come unto Thee and little black Quibba wept at the distance of things and the milk flow from a flower rend left me afraid Sister Theckia weaving crowns from blossoms at the stem and the donkey in the street passed once and once only Queen of the angels and the queen of the May no rider at the end of an era for the last donkey of Torre Hill can you hear the fontayn of the sweet nightingale and the putters putt on the green and are not distracted startling light perpetuates a startled evergreen no rest this side of the enclosure the holy hedge consumes an August afternoon arterial gold the spoke of the leaf hold and the green leaves are oppressed I cannot cross to the other side though sun dark leaves hurt the undersurface reflecting but deflection August inviolable among the holly leaves the broken mooring of an orb web beyond repair o but there is no way through and no going beyond this August day as she sings in the valley below I am certain that once the holly hedge passed this way nothing remains now except an enclosure open and unenclosed why have the holly leaves disappeared and the car park is still adjacent and the pathway either from or toward but why am I so afraid the fast August corner of a holly hedge has gone a broken mirrors sudden vertical reflections remain though I come with my own children the holly hedge remains for you were always on the other side the one way journey beyond only through the holly leaves the putting green is deserted and the putters have left but the last corner the holly hedge has gone sometimes the nurses took us through the putting green to woodland under oak trees downward and fern leaf beyond lasting depths of deciduous oak leaf airless grew nothing disturbed the breathing fold risen green from leaf mould endless light and darkness as only these fern leaves without wind or rain the firmamental waters hold such silence I had not heard before such a silence neither bird song nor oak leaf dissolving underfoot and the sudden nurse calling through a shower of rain o to dissolve for I walk alone over leaf fern a one way journey beyond the nightingale fontayn heard upon a keyboard the cafe would open for a few more Sundays but its season was done some of the trestle tables were already folded away and you had been laid off the season was done I was weary among tables weariness as only the formal leaves know before leaf fall casual Sunday people were casual before leaf fall the cafe by the water would it ever come again you were gone you had been laid off and the season was done and the long summer we worked together and Robert and ! did all the running the silence at the end of the day when people worked in silence among dressers full of willow pattern but the illuminated house was vacant darkness only a torn note you tore from a door to remain remained but she told us to come on Tuesday evening and one day at the tea shop Mary promised to help and Mary was a landlady and left an address and told us to wait and I persuaded you but she did not come she told us to come on Tuesday evening at the crossroads I can think of nothing and there is nothing left to say to you the high stone converges and from every side its banks plunge downward into flames of low rain from Gledhow Wood what road did we come by tell me what you know why do you walk the leaves as though for the last time over water the October wind was forming I don't want to go to the cafe anymore and you heard October wind forming I sing of a maiden Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring her lifetime for a moment held his love daddy brought you flowers that day so proud he was to bring such a teeming of chrysanthemum and dahlias amassing under cellophane and you recoiling so little so much the pity of it all lily of the valley hyacinth blue and asphodel man astride wrinkled as deadweight sea for years I walked shallows clear with you leaden as delirium soft as the fugitive stopped feet of a dream where hell is falling headlong down and the desperate and fallen are inconsequential under heaven there only the flash of a welding are for we are filaments of men shadows out of neon the night sees upon window glass the key is broken fast within its lock at the intersection sky domed into concrete blue no loophole for the soul through that mortised horizon a primary unmoving vastness outstared me there man was oscillation on the blur of interval from the stillroom of a cafe to world without end where pageant lucid is as sunlight under marble rain is falling softly in spring you are searching for something you cannot find though more than once you pass the open door Will Be. Wait for. Want to. lily lily PAGE ONE BACK TO TOP