Well, I shouldn't be the one to start up such a topic, but i've written something i'd like to share with the lot of yis.
do follow up with something of your own.
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Driving to Mayo and back
I
I usually leave you shortly before twilight,
when in the summertime you can still see the sky gleaming out of the trees
and few cars from the main road mark their passage with swift hummings
that break the rhythm of the wind.
Rain has declared her unilateral ceasefire today. You stare at me perplexed, not sure
what it is going to happen next.
I kiss you gently and keep my tears, as I do when I leave,
for the first or the second gear, when my rent car already has disappeared from the house view.
Couple of bends and I’m off onto the main road, put my glasses back on, tune the car radio
on the station I know you’re listening to in the kitchen;
that’s generally the moment when I start speeding up to reach one of my other lives.
Few more bends and I don’t see anything anymore: no gleaming sky, no trees,
no petrol stations, churches or pubs to say goodbye to.
I just keep my eyes on the road, my heart unbeating, for as much as possible.
II
This summer breeze has left me with no turf to bring into the house.
After I’ve washed the dishes I am stunned at the image of us
Watching the telly, looking at each other, at times, from couch to sofa.
You point at things happening on the same Barney show we’ve already
watched many times in a single day, trying to letting me into the story.
Everything’s happy and everybody’s smiling at the best feelings they present us with,
at all those beautiful things, the happy life, the kisses, the hugs,
the jumping, the singing, you face is glued on to.
I too go dreaming about a possible happy life in a non-defined future.
When it’s time for you to have your lunch all my happiness
is your hand to hold to walk you in the kitchen, lifting you up
to your high chair, fasting your belts, putting your tray on.
Future happiness will be a fork turning into a train or a helicopter
straight as a sun ray into your mouth.
You quickly chew and – sometimes – ask for more.
III
The first time we’ve ever danced together
you were just seven weeks old and your mother and I
were having dinner in a restaurant in Ballindine.
Looking at the place from your buggy you were relaxed at first,
but then you started to scream like a little mad girl;
so I decided to take you up in my arms and go up and down
in the restaurant, when I realized that a Janis Joplin’s song was
hovering in the air. We started dancing quite automatically,
at the rhythm of “take another little piece of my heart, baby”.
You stopped your cry and looked at me puzzled, not knowing what to do;
you were amused and relaxed again, moving at our own pace,
still dancing, still taking pieces of my own heart and playing with them,
putting them in your mouth like the little yellow and orange mice
that if you squeeze them they make a funny noise you liked so much.
IV
Every time I drive away from Dublin’s M50 it’s a slow impatience
that pushes the accelerator for me.
I have no problem finding my way until I get
at about 50 miles from you. I never take the same road then,
and find myself lost on some narrow dodgy roadeen
with no familiar spot on it to reassure me I’m going the right direction.
It is at this point that my slow impatience tells me to go mall a little bit,
so that I can read the few signposts and don’t miss the right turn
(although I do not have the faintest clue on where and when it is going to appear
and I’ve always had serious doubts the right turn really exists).
When I’m back on a track I can recognize, my eyes start to smile,
to cheer the local newsagent and petrol station, the pub, the church
we sometimes go on bustling Sunday mornings,
if you’re up in time for it.
V
The first eye contact with you
after weeks or months I’ve been away
is always an eerie one. I have to hold my urge
to run to you and hug you and kiss,
and bite you like a piece of cake
because I know I’d scare you.
You stare at me confused at first, not sure who’s this
man making silly faces at you, then sometimes run to the other room,
or, slowly, start to introduce me to you little
friends, puppets and new toys, making acquaintance
with the ones I’ve brought you form home.
This is when I forget about all the roads in the world,
When I really get lost into all your giggles and smiles and cries.
Sometimes you do not need roads or cars to find yourself
far far away from everybody and everything else.
Sept 2006
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get a life, get a minicall!!