Requiem Éire

There is a place not far from Yeats' Tower.
No life grows there, no lively tune, nor poets power
Has ever rang of this land. Yet here I may recall,
In remembrance, Roscommon; land of the funeral pall.

Headstones have they planted in every field,
Springing forth from grey faced loins, and thus a graveyard yield.
The dead outnumber the living, the youth long gone from the yard.
Inevitably interred in the adjoining garden, they stamped down hard.

There was a wedding there amongst the old dying firs.
The bride wore white, with flowers from a broken wreath.
A funeral plot the wedding gift- a family grave.
Life was buried there; man, woman and unborn child.
What they had, they gave,
And into the ground they piled.

poem by Keith Moynihan O' Brien
Added by Poetry Lover
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Come Tend My Garden

Come to my garden Teacher.
The birds of my heart have long since flown,
And the silence tween the mottled boughs has leaden grown.
In the sunrise be the chorus of mornings' glory,
And in the noon tell of Dionysus' story.
In the night be the whistling gale,
Whisper in my ear of some furtive dale.

Come to my garden Teacher.
Scarce the lavender and the rosemary on the breeze,
Rarer now gripped in winter's freeze.
Scented memories, they warm me sometimes in the eve,
Jasmine and honey in foreign winds on exotic leave.
Heady the breath and quick its draw,
Drinking it in, its addiction no flaw.

Come to my garden Teacher.
Overgrown and unknown, bring your fingers there
And burrow neath the weeds among Angels' Hair.
White is the colour of the petals in my soul unfurled;

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poem by Keith Moynihan O' Brien
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!