by Matt Duggan
At the horror, the sorrow, the heart-broken tear
Would he think he had laboured in vain?
ROADS
There are roads that are narrow and crooked and bent,
As they follow the river and hill.
There are roads that are strong, with the strength of cement,
Where the harried can hurry at will.
There are high roads and low roads, main roads and by-roads,
And branch roads of every degree;
But I like a brown road, a wait and sit down road,
The long way to town road for me.
There are roads that can lure you away off your path,
With a promise of pleasure in store,
And bear you along by lone bush and rath,
Through mystical memories of yore.
There are roads that have climbed to the tops of the hills,
And roads that sweep down to the sea.
But I like a wee road, an easy and free road.
A stop and take tea road, for me.
When we’re borne along to the crossroads of life,
And weaned from the family’s protection,
The roads, with their mixture of pleasure and strife,
Invite us in every direction.
If we’re given a voice in the road of our choice,
And can plan what our future might be,
Then I’d take a slow road, a friendly hello road,
A chat as you go road for me.
THE NEARWAYS
Where are all the nearways gone, the footsticks and the stiles,
That saved the weary traveller so many dusty miles;
The friendly little pathways, the highways of the poor,
That brought the chatty neighbour, and the stranger, past the door?
Along the laughing mountain streams, where waterfalls cascade,
Through meadow land, and boggy land, and sheltered woodland glade,
From field to field, and glen to glen, across the stoney braes,
To church and school, to shop and town, they wound their devious ways.
Before the wheels began to turn, ere roads or lanes were paved,
Across the maps their tentacles and curvings were engraved.
But maps are callous, useful things, so how could they portray
The soothing feel of springing sod that kept fatigue away?
Nor could they mime the singing bird, the startled hare at speed;
Or children’s joyous frenzy in a barefooted stampede.
The quiet farmhouse on the hill, a triumphant cackling hen,
And rills that sound like rivers, with the acoustics in the glen.
When the Brehons and their laws had gone, and the land was being divided,
As ditches cut across the paths, the stiles were first provided.
Now, smothered by the briars, they moulder, all alone,
The hidden proof that countless feet wore furrows in a stone.
Why don’t we put the footsticks back, and open up the stiles,
And walk the grassy, verdant fields, the mountains and defiles;
Absorb the peace that nature yields, let cares and worries die,
Where the soul meets its Creator, ‘tween the blending earth and sky?
We could use the barren, windswept roads, designed for hurtling speed,
In the doing of our business, in urgency and need;
But why not use the little paths, and walk their lengths once more?
We need their calming solace now, as we never did before.
THE WEE ROAD
Have you been on the road from Kinawley
That meanders right through Corrameen
Peeping over the bottoms at Moher,
Bending around Corrardreen?
It seems to explore Derraclegna,
Aspiring toward Lanty in vain.
To avoid Coffey’s Ford, it slips through Derrylea
And so to the main road again.
All our hills peep and peer at the wee road,
As they lean to the south, o’er the flat.
There’s Carn, Clonturkle and Molly,
Aughaweenagh, Gortgesh and Stramatt.
There’s Tully, Glasdrummond, Gortoral,
And Elkin and Glan in the west,
While Carroo and Binn support Cuilcagh,
Like a king, dominating the rest.
On that wee road that leads from Kinawley
All the tensions of life fade away,
Eternity dwells in the mountains,
Life can be lived in a day.
When you’re jostled and pushed, and depressed and deprived,
And there’s no ray of hope to be seen,
Look for a wee road full of solace and hope,
Like the one that runs through Corrameen.
THE WEE MINI
When first she came to me, the wee mini van,
Was new, without blemish or taint.
Her points, plugs and pistons in harmony ran;
She smelled of new rubber and paint.
A child of the city, she viewed with alarm,
Our vistas and soft, silent spaces,
And failed to descry either beauty or charm,
In the rough, rural cast of our faces.
And so, though she willingly shared in our toil,
Never hinting or shirking or slacking,
And I kept her nourished with petrol and oil;
The real spirit of friendship was lacking.
Then one day, they took her away to the town,
To perform in the new M.O. Test,
She was hoked at and poked at and turned upside down,
While spruced up to look at her best.
But mechanics are prone to be cold and aloof.
She missed the warm welcome and chat;
And the gossips who leisurely leaned on her roof,
Giving forth about this thing or that.
She longed for the little brown laneways again,
Where the crunch of the gravel brings zest;
Where the winds in the alders sing friendship’s refrain,
And the houses peep over each crest.
So, when I went for her, she blushed with delight,
‘Til her bonnet looked as red as a rose.
Her creaking suspension grew buoyant and light,
Like an athlete, poised on her toes.
So, homeward we sped, by the bridge to the west,
Left the town, with its clatter and din;
Then turned to the south, full of laughter and jest,
On the road that runs through Derrylin.
Well, ever since then, across valley and brae;
By loughside and bogside and stream,
She purrs all the way and work is like play,
Now she knows she is part of the team.
AROUND DERRYLIN.
Round the shores of Lough Erne and Slieve Russell’s green braes,
I have joyfully travelled for most of my days,
Far away from life’s pressures, the turmoil, the din
On the wee roads and laneways around Derrylin.
They have borne me each day through the well loved scene,
To the grey speckled rock and the Lough’s silver sheen,
And the circle of mountains from Mucklough to Binn,
Those wee roads and laneways around Derrylin.
How often I’ve paused on the crest of the braes,
To gaze on Lough Erne, her islands and bays,
And felt the warm upsurge of peace deep within
On the wee roads and laneways around Derrylin.
Then the heather-capped mountains with aprons of green,
Besprinkled with homesteads, whitewashed and serene,
And the hedgerows aflame with the gold of the whin,
Along the wee roads and hedgerows around Derrylin.
A lough decked with islands, a sky sweet with sound,
With all Nature’s colours and c
ontours around,
A reflection of heaven must surely be seen
From the wee roads and laneways around Derrylin.
My journeys have led me to many a door,
The cottage, the farmhouse, the rich and the poor,
And kindly rewarding the welcome has been
On the wee roads and laneways around Derrylin.
ODE TO LUGUBRIOUS
(A delph jug that stood on the mantelpiece in Derrylin Post Office. He was a bloodhound head)
Lugubrious of the hanging jowl,
Is there really menace in your scowl?
Or can it be I’ve heard you growl
While sorting in the morning;
And why the pessimistic gaze
That leaves me in a hypnotic daze?
Do you see life through a sulphurous haze,
All optimism scorning?
Perhaps behind your gruff exterior
There lurks a complex that’s inferior:
Let’s have a look at your interior,
I can’t be more salubrious;
For though ignored by Tom and Joe,
I, at least, am not your foe.
I love you! So away with woe,
And smile on me, Lugubrious.
LUGUBRIOUS
When the hay was all made, I was lolling about
And I thought of our mutual attraction
But the divil an answer came into me head
To give me the least satisfaction.
The answer may be in the whistling grass
Or the whispering poplar tree,
But I think it’s you should be telling the tale
For you are far oulder than me.
When witches were flying around on their brooms
And you were a silly young pup,
Well you laughed at an ugly oul’ craythur one night
And she turned you into a cup.
Then blind in her anger she speeded away
And crashed in the poplar tree.
Her handle broke off and she fell on the ground
And the rushes were shaking with glee.
Well, that may have been on the night I was born
And maybe she’s under my skin,
For I think we have met, before we had met
At the counter, in Derrylin.
Well years passed away and, at last the oul’ witch
Caught a glimpse of herself in a puddle,
And she laughed ‘til she cried at the sight that she saw
With her faytures, all messed, in a muddle.
Then she thought of the poor little pup that had laughed
As hearty as she had herself,
And sorry she was for the deed she had done
To lave him all frozen in delph.
Well the power of witches has all passed away
And the fairies have gone from the fort
But many a heart is being turned into delph
By the chill of an angry retort.
So, now, in disguise, as she rambles around
With a mixture of chatter and chaff,
The oul’ witch is trying to wipe out her sin
And throw all the delph with a laugh.
LUGUBRIOUS TO MATT
Sitting morosely on my shelf,
A sad and lonely piece of delph,
Disconsolate, I ask myself
“Where did the postman go?”
Especially the wee gabby fellow
With the ugly face and skin so yellow,
Who used to seem so blithe and mellow
As he went to and fro.
Some mornings I was irritated
By the singing noises he created,
I prayed his ego be deflated
But now he is gone, I grieve.
My hanging ears and glum expression
Brought him joy and not depression.
He showed more friendship than aggression.
Why did he ever leave?
An introvert who loved seclusion
I once resented his intrusion,
But now converted to diffusion
I am left alone to mourn.
So come back, Matt, be not ashamed,
The rank and file are never blamed,
Redemption may be yet acclaimed,
Like the prodigal’s return.
FLYING THOUGHTS
A thought is a transient sort of a thing.
It has neither colour nor size.
It’s as light in its flight as a midge on the wing.
It is born and it lives, then it dies.
Flamboyant and happy, it penetrates care,
Leaving sparklets of joy in its train;
Transmuting to gold the dull dross that was there,
Before it flashed into that brain.
A thought can be winsome and wayward as well,
It respects neither persons nor places;
It can suddenly loom with the speed of a spell
To flick smiles on the grimmest of faces.
When I talk of a thought, I’m not thinking of thought
That philosophers spend all their lives at.
It’s a thought by itself, a whimsical elf,
That nobody thinks or connives at.
I hope that my thinking has not been in vain,
But now the results are on paper.
It is easy to see it evolved in a brain
Emitting a great deal of vapour.
THE WOODBINE AND THE ROSE
All along the hedgerows, intangible, unseen,
The woodbine has been crawling through labyrinthine green,
Casting pleading tentacles to clutch unwary strength,
Goaded by the urgent spring, along its vibrant length.
Up the twisted branches of the gnarled sally bush,
The wild rose sent its thorny stem, in growth’s erotic rush,
Hastening through the shadows, darting towards the light,
Spilling out across the top, the summit of its flight.
Like tiny beckoning fingers, in yellow gloves enclosed,
The woodbine bloom awaits the sun, on alder green, exposed,
Emitting subtle incense on the languorous evening air,
Enticement for the questing bee, a pollinating snare,
And the stunted, lichened sally becomes a fragrant bower,
As the spiked, abrasive wild rose bursts into fragile flower,
Garbed in petalled gossamer, of heaven’s own design,
A lighthouse in the bushes, a green and ruby shrine.
But the Author of all beauty, in His wisdom has ordained
That the wild rose and the woodbine, by the hedge must be sustained.
And, for all their dainty beauty and opulent display,
Without the plebian effort, they would smother and decay.
And many an able statesman, who forgot whence he came,
In the tumult and the plaudits, and the adulating fame,
Has remembered when deflated and defeated by his foes,
It was the common herd that propped him, like the woodbine and the rose.
FREEDOM
In the days before the motor car, when a man could stand alone,
And live on what his soil produced, and call his life his own;
Before we got amenities, and learned of pomp and show;
When freedom flourished on the farms and life was calm and slow;
Our parents never leaped from bed, bemused with nervous shock,
Before the dawn on a winter morn, obedient to a clock.
Nor did they worry half the night to wake with fluttering heart,
Fearing they must stay from work, if the motor did not start.
Electric gadgets run the homes, the farms are mechanised,
The poor old spade, that reared us all, is dumped and ostracised.
And we, who once knew freedom and could work or rest at will,
Are now the slaves of progress, and the ever-looming bill.
Farewe
ll to independence, it can never live again,
We have placed ourselves in bondage, and there we shall remain.
Could we still have freedom, had we but used our brains?
But we never knew what freedom was until we were in chains.
OLD FRIENDS PARTED.
While reluctantly cycling, spasmodically brisk,
Delivering the mails with the minimum risk,
In imminent danger of slipping a disc,
I wondered what you did, dear dog.
Have you been dormant in dull hibernation,
Or engrossed in canine meditation,
Or was life suspended by mesmerisation
Did you sleep in a hypnotical fog?
When sunshine first burst from nature’s tomb,
When sunshine filtered through the gloom,
When snowdrops shyly spread in bloom,
I thought our meeting near.
But alas, my hopes were all in vain,
False winter turned and struck again
With wind and snow and hail and rain,
So how could you appear?
THE FAIRIES
Can it be that the fairies have all gone away?
Would they leave us alone with our grief?
Is that why the world seems so sordid and grey?
Do we miss the romantic belief?
But, whose is the music the mountain breeze brings,
When it flatters the fern on the brae?
And who wrote the song that the mountain stream sings,
As it washes the cresses all day?
Who plays the lute through the tall slender reeds,
As the gloaming drops soft on the shore?
Evoking the memories of races and creeds
