Leis Sin, Léigh Mé ‘Amor’ / And Then I Read ‘Amor’

And Then I Read 'Amor'.

In the whirlings of the days
and noise of the nights
attentions flung from paten to plate
and glasses klink, and laughter flies,
I felt it steady: a constant, quiet mass.
And I longed to rest on it
to run up on the welcomed shoal.

To catch your glance was to melt the crowd
and part them. And your voice—
jabs and punch-lines softened to whispers;
an ocean floor stretched out to me vast
inviting
frightening
expanses to search and mine.
But I held treasures too fragile to risk
with whom I thought you were.
And you, with treasures too precious to entrust
to myself.
I’d fumbled before.

So your eyes over dark pints met my quick removal (less quick
as day passed to next),
“So then”-s and “Do you…?”-s, a short-lived reception
afraid that in a well-enjoyed chat in the statued nave
or in a bit-too-long return gaze
the fissures in my slip-shod dam would burst against
the flood of your own.
And all would know.


Afraid that your eyes were lying.

Afraid that they weren’t.

Afraid that your soul brewed with forces strong surpassing the frame
whose sturdy beauty was obvious to all—
until Neruda and the flutist of an Emerald tune
bowed low to honor the entrance of respect
somewhere among the six staggered bottles of red wine.

Forces once confirmed, I let the waters knock me down.

However lovely your eyes in that sea-harbor hue
they hadn’t prepared me for their power
to sink my soul in its base
and then search
and then reach
and then love
the unlovable in me.

Lips that many have dreamed to fall upon
poured forth a wisdom rarely heard
among the sons of men.

That form, undressed by lusts,
abused in cravings of a mind’s dark eye,
pushed tender purity into my own
misused
and misguided.
The heat in which I was healed.

And your hands? Your daunting hands—
trained for the kill—
they risked
to hold out your trembling heart to me

admitting to former pain

yet brave enough to love again

a mirror open, transfixed in heaven’s love

and an anchor of mine was laid that night in you.
Pray God—He’ll see the voyage through.


**********


One word written leaves too many left unsaid.
Say many? Then the poetry falls dead.
No word at all…the heart would break instead.

GAEL

Tá blag leite agam le déanaí, agus ann ach nár bhual mé dorn ar an údar. Cinnte go mbeadh sé deacair ar fad é sin a dhéanamh agus seisean thar lear…

It was full of vitriol, of all-too-common Irish self-loathing and, I must say, a good deal of ignorance. But what most angered me about this blog I read quite recently was that it was rife with pragmatic money-logic and had no regard for the soul.

I know: "What is the soul?" There was a time, I think, that the term was readily understood in its religious context. Yet, by extension, even for the most irreligious among us, I believe that we can define it as that which makes an individual most unique, and that from which one contributes to the world in a way that no one else can do. The poet, the prophet and the artist can go further (and most, I'd say, have something of either within us) and assert that the "soul" is that element within us that finds pleasure in what lies beyond sight, beyond words, what the mind can put together to create new worlds, new visions, new sounds; it binds affections, weaves memories into dreams, roots time into eternity. It is something like imagination, yet creeps into the vital places much more ineradicably than just "an imagining". To tear it up would kill the prophet, the poet, the artist... It would do some damage to the pragmatist, but without much howl and perhaps there would be little noticeably different in his gait once the deed were done.

I will not link to this blog. I will not stain your mind with the images, but I will sum it up as such: too much money is being poured into supporting the Irish language; we Irish are just a bunch of fuck-ups anyway; let's use the money for something better, like making ourselves more British.

The benefit of reading the blog, in my own case, was that I had to ask myself again: why on earth for the past 10 years have I been studying the most difficult Indo-European language still in existence when so few people speak it natively and not many more than them show an honest interest in it even in its own land? My own history and thoughts on the language could fill a small book. I have just about discarded it in disgust at times along the decade only to pick up again, avidly, ravenously. Why the love-hate, and why the hundreds of hours of effort?

Because of my own heritage? Yes, especially at first: a connection to my ancestors.
Because I'm a linguist? Absolutely, the mechanics of the language are fascinating.
Because I love a challenge? Not really, but I found myself determined.
Because, like any language, it makes you think differently about reality? Quite so, and the Celtic vision of the world as I force myself to think in this tongue is something that I would be poorer without.
Because I believe in uniqueness of culture? And there is no better way than through a language.
Because I believe in revival for the sake of improvement, in cultural renaissance, in rising from the ashes and in seeing injustice reversed? Because I'm a gay man with whom oppression resonates, who is enraged to the core when he sees a dominant force squelch the identity out of a people? Because I'm a gay man still struggling to be himself in the face of a scoffing majority, indignant--perhaps self-righteously--when a people will not reclaim their own soul for themselves and will cut the legs off those who try?

GAEL

Banba flails and foams.

Romantics write the words that will not be heard
above the nay and say no more for what’s the use.
An army of warrior poets wrestling under the waves
of indolent cynics.
So much élan to lose one’s thoughts
and trample dreams and be
without
a name.

The children of her children
scattered
Stand upon the five shores
mourned
Banba fades beneath a wave.

Corelli's Mandolin

Sitting upon my shelf for over a year now has been a book, one of many given to me by a dear, well-read friend. I finally pulled it down, and it was my principle reading for this last week at the Jersey Shore.

This was one of the most unexpected treasures I have come upon in the last year. Are you interested at all in Mediterranean culture? In the history of the Axis powers in World War II? In classical music, cuisine, Ancient Greek literature, foreign curse words or budding, young love?

Or mature love. A widower's love as he explains it to his daughter. A love that wants love to be real and grow beyond mere passion. Two-thirds through the exquisitely written pages I read this, and found in it a pearl of striking wisdom:

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and
then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to
work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable
that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not
breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of
eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day, it is not
lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No,
don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which
any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned
away, and this is both an art and a fortunate
accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each
other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches
we found that we were one tree and not two." -Louis de Bernieres, Corelli's Mandolin, chapt. 47

On a related note, read this article from the Wild Reed blog concerning the role of Eros in relationships with God, and its role in spiritual relationships with partners and spouses:

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2009/07/sometimes-i-wonder.html