BRENDAN KENNELLY reads "My Dark Fathers"

My dark fathers lived the intolerable day
Committed always to the night of wrong,
Stiffened at the hearthstone, the woman lay,
Perished feet nailed to her man’s breastbone.
Grim houses beckoned in the swelling gloom
Of Munster fields where the Atlantic night
Fettered the child within the pit of doom,
And everywhere a going down of light.
And yet upon the sandy Kerry shore
The woman once had danced at ebbing tide
Because she loved flute music-and still more
Because a lady wondered at the pride
Of one so humble. That was long before
The green plant withered by an evil chance,
When winds of hunger howled at every door
She heard the music dwindle and forgot the dance.
Such mercy as the wolf receives was hers
Whose dance became a rhythm in a grave,
Achieved beneath the thorny savage furze
That yellowed fiercely in a mountain cave.
Immune to pity, she, whose crime was love,
Crouched, shivered, searched the threatening sky,
Discovered ready signs, compelled to move
Her to her innocent appalling cry.
Skeletoned in darkness, my dark fathers lay
Unknown, and could not understand
The giant grief that trampled night and day,
The awful absence moping through the land.
Upon the headland, the encroaching sea
Left sand that hardened after tides of Spring,
No dancing feet disturbed its symmetry
And those who loved good music ceased to sing.
Since every moment of the clock
Accumulates to form a final name,
Since I am come of Kerry clay and rock,
I celebrate the darkness and the shame
That could compel a man to turn his face
Against the wall, withdrawn from light so strong
And undeceiving, spancelled in a place
Of unapplauding hands and broken song.
~
From "Selected Poems"

[@waynesmith3767]

Such beauty and such pain in this marvelous poem so well read by its author. Thank you.

[@JorgeMartinExequielReynalsScot]

I seek the light under my feet
I seek bright colours I cannot meet
Cause I walk too fast and I oose my beat
Or I hear the whisper starring quick
Oh I wish this light was quieter
And I wish it could always be gentle
As I believe a secret is golden
And a unique spark is due to the eye
That's not chasing but feeling the try
All of us are timid and never want to depart
So let's pray for destiny
And for the sake of humankind I seek the light under my feet
I seek bright colours I cannot meet
Cause I walk too fast and I oose my beat
Or I hear the whisper starring quick
Oh I wish this light was quieter
And I wish it could always be gentle
As I believe a secret is golden
And a unique spark is due to the eye
That's not chasing but feeling the try
All of us are timid and never want to depart
So let's pray for destiny
And for the sake of humankind

[@rievans57]

Interesting.