Use HOME / END on the keyboard to go to the beginning / end of the page
Mother and Child
Dedicated to the grandmother I never knew
My grandmother was committed to a mental asylum in her early thirties after recurring bouts of manic depression. Sadly, she spent the rest of her life there.
In different places apart they lie,
A woman once haunted by her baby's cry Whom earlier treatment might have saved Instead of being laid in an unmarked grave. For the death certificate that gave the cause Noted fourteen days when there'd been a pause While meningitis* claimed the child Before a doctor was by her side. Perhaps that death had broken her heart For her life was lived in a place apart, A place apart that her burial paid For in unmarked grave with others she's laid, Where the cemetery records bear her name Though the site is uncertain even then. |
"Postnatal depression", the family said,
But I grew up believing her dead Until too late to visit the place Where she had been hidden away in disgrace, Though I know that my older siblings knew And made visits to her with my mother too, A mother who died while I still was quite young And before my grandmother's time had come. I think you will understand if I say Although it is known in the normal way I have written this poem to give a name To a woman whose life was hidden in shame. * cerebrospinal meningitis on 14 April 1907 aged 7 months |
The Valley
A symbol of the division in Northern Ireland
This poem was inspired by the rugged Scottish scenery I was driving through after a visit to Ireland. I was deeply concerned by the hardening attitudes I had found there, just before the start of the IRA bombing campaign.
Trees slant in the wind
Precarious equilibrium. The water serrates. Round the lake mountains press Cathedral majestic. Such wildness worships. Across the gorge I see a figure, A distant stranger. My heart spreads out to call him brother. The valley voids at my pretension. He turns My heart heavy on his hand Unwelcome burden. When voices winnow in the wind * Can hearts do better? The trees are a gnarled cross Straining to the valley. This is the violence of the dying Who are dead. 1971 * Only the chaff blows across |
Sanctuary
Several weeks after the events described in this poem, I was admitted for a short period to the same mental institution in Belfast where, unknown to me then, my grandmother had spent most of her life.
"It is here you are meant to be"
a silent voice spoke within as I reached the door of the church where worship was due to begin. In the cool of that morning early I had trod forest paths alone and powerfully felt an assurance in a way I had never known. Light through the branches was dancing with shadows on the forest floor where fallen leaves were hinting that Autumn was beckoning once more. I looked out from the edge of the forest on a vista of meadow and hill and there on a bench I was tranquil as I sat for some time and was still. Then with canopy of leaves above me and a carpet of moss beneath a prayer of thanks I breathed softly walking back in that sanctuary of peace. But a tempest raged within me that was far from a feeling of calm after entering that other sanctuary, the church where this poem began. |
Nothing I heard in the service
could explain the trembling I felt but the previous week had known traumas and places where terror had dwelt. For this was the week when Internment* had unleashed the demon of dread with riots where twenty-six perished and seven thousand people had fled.** My father had Catholic neighbours who were threatened with fire to their home and this mother and daughter he sheltered till the husband from England could come. I sat with them that night long after midnight had come and had gone to secure some semblance of calmness and assure them they were not alone. This was the start of a sequence that ushered in difficult days when leaving known paths of perception I journeyed in uncharted ways. But I never once felt abandoned having loved ones in whom to confide, and the presence I sensed in the forest a sanctuary safe did provide. |
* Detention by army and police of suspected IRA members
**See Wikipedia article on ‘Operation Demetrius’
**See Wikipedia article on ‘Operation Demetrius’