Confinement

This one needs a little bio.

A year and a half ago my mother was rushed to surgery with a stomach anyeurism, the same night that my father had been taken into hospital for surgery. I flew back to Northern Ireland immediately, and went to the hospital to see them both. Each level in the Royal Victoria has an icon to help identify it. When I came out of the lift on my dad's floor, the first thing I stepped on was the icon - a labyrinth. Those who know me know what an important symbol that is for me, and I took it as a sign from God that - whatever might happen - it's all held in God's care. We sat by mum's bed in intensive care for weeks, and it took 6 months for her to get home. But she made it. She really is a trooper.

I wrote this during those long suspenseful days of waiting.



Confinement

We cannot confine this time.
It seeps like a wound
still raw at the seams;
worn red from weeping.

We wait with the others in line
‘til sharply summoned
to enter the temple of dreams
where spent gods lie sleeping.

We study the scene for a sign
of a miracle in the round;
for we are powerless it seems
in this vigil we’re keeping.

We establish a rhythm and rhyme
to our days, but have found
that it’s useless. None of our schemes
can stem mortality’s creeping.

Our soul-ache defies anodyne.
On this course we are bound;
and yet, cradled. A symbol redeems:
the labyrinth foreshadows safe-keeping.

Gale

I’d share that moment with you if I could;
the morning sun straining through scudding cloud,
swathing the wind-scoured fields in shifting light.
And yet for all her wintery glory bright
The trees and scrawny bushes bowed
Not to her, but to another.

A gale swept in, swept clean across the coast.
And from my armchair, safe, I sensed its power
in throaty gusts that made the rafters groan
and toppled heavy plant pots – left them prone
and helpless, ‘mid spilt earth and flower.
Their squat stability undone.

The skeletons of climbing frame and swing
Keened, as raw elemental air raced through;
shuddering with the strain of staying still.
The lengthening grass preferred to bend, its will
less hardened; rippling like the blue
green sea that swells beyond the dunes.

Strangely moved, I sat transfixed and silent,
breathing shallow lest the spell be broken.
Embraced in peace, when outside all was rage
I lost myself in wonder for an age,
knowing truth was being spoken
in words no ear could understand,

but heart could fathom. The unrepentant
wind was chiding; calling all who live too tame
to wildness. Not to shush the soul’s long sighs
to sleep, but send them skirling through the skies,
airborne, breath-born. Given a name.
Lifted, like a child’s giddy kite.

I’d share that moment with you, but it’s gone.
Swept off on that same breeze to who knows where.
Yet traces linger; a yearning for more
of all that we call life. I slid the door
and stepped into the swirling air
where dry leaves danced in ecstasy.