TRAVEL POEM

 

 

Graveyard in Connemara

 

There is a graveyard

In Connemara

Where children

Who were never baptized,

Are buried.

Under the bog

They lie in their coffins.

Alone, and unmarked,

Un-nameable orphans.

Wind howls, and fog shrouds,

As rains hammer often.

 

 

There is a graveyard

In Connemara

Where wanderers, drunks,

Or the friendless,

Are buried.

Plucked from the street

Un-claimable strangers

Who died, or were beaten

By Ireland’s dangers,

Rattle about

Subterranean mangers.

 

 

There is a graveyard

In Connemara

Where changelings

Who were born un-lucky,

Are buried.

Lame, or deformed,

Perceived as defiled,

Belief held:

The devil had stolen the child,

Instead, leaving this

Chromosomally wild

 

 

Abortion to linger

Accursed, reviled

Till murdered,

They lay with the other exiled.

 

 

Somebody said

There had to be water

(Strange, in this landscape’s

Inherent disorder)

Rushing beside

Where this shamble of stones

Marked this unfortunate

Chaos of bones;

These abject

Unknowns.

 

 

Clouds, like a spell,

Hover insistently.

Sheep, if they graze,

Do so, indifferently.

Prayers, if they’re heard

Dissipate instantly.

Days pass persistently.

 

 

There is a graveyard

In Connemara

(The ground here is wetter.)

Where suicides,

(But, what if

Death is no better?)

The worst offenders,

Are buried.

 

 

All who were judged unworthy

Are hidden

Far from the fields

Where horses are ridden.

Green, and the grace,

And the brogue, and the love

Of this land,

Or a word, or a hand

Are for these here,

Untraceable, hapless,

Or rogue…

Forbidden.

Forbidden.