Two more poems from Michael Patrick Moore reminding us of friendship and loss and love during this month of remembering
Fire Side Conversations
(For Joe)
Shades of colour
Rainbow like still
Occupy our minds,
Tumbling into one another
Shades of many kinds.
Music we can almost taste
And dripping off the tongue,
Old as parchment paper
And yet altogether young.
Peace descends upon us
Like a blanket
Warm and soft,
Conversations Fireside
Are what we’re dreaming of.
The universe will keep for us
This promise,
I am sure;
Waves though restless
In their making
Always find the shore
BROKEN GLASS
(Vale Jo-Anne)
Shell shocked; all we who were there to mourn your death that dark day in April.
Said our goodbyes and then quietly, tearfully and almost gratefully
Withdrew from that place and embraced once again our lives and the living where you could not follow.
So we left you instead in that tear-stained earth.
Or did we?
Was it I alone who heard it;
A sound like breaking glass.
Your spirit dispersing as we dispersed a shard for each of our hearts.
That private tempest you weathered alone, is spent now at least I guess and serenity sought but dearly bought
Eternally yours; my friend.
I was born in Queensland the fourth of six children, Fourth generation Australian born on my mother’s side who were predominantly of Irish stock who came to Australia post the famine years (for the most part from the counties of Tipperary, Wicklow and Donegal). My father came to Australia from Dublin in the 1950s; his father was raised in Maam Connemara and later in Kilkee County Clare but the Moore family going back were from Kilmorna, later known as Kilmeany near Listowel. His mother, was a Barrett from Ennis, County Clare, that whole family very involved in those troubled years of the war of independence in Ireland. Also just out of interest I was part of a little Folk/Irish trio called Welder’s Dog for 10 years or so, with a brother of mine David and our friend Peter Harris, some of our music is still on YouTube I believe. If you listen to Castle Hill Patriots, that is my Dad singing Boolavogue at the start of that song.
Tinteán 