|
Journey of a Pebble
Two Items relating to Tintean, Melbourne:
Heavenly News: Poets, Noel King, Terry McDonagh and Saint Karol Wojtyla are published in Issue 16 of Tintean in Melbourne.
A number of years ago, I did a reading in Killeeneen churchyard by the grave of the blind poet, Anthony Raftery (1778-1835) – Raftery and I have Cill Aodáin as our birthplace. After the reading, I put a tiny pebble from his grave in my wallet and carried it around with me for a few years until one day, when I opened my wallet to check dollars near Flinders’s Street station in Melbourne, my pebble dropped out and tumbled into a gully.
My mood swung from dejection to elation within a few seconds – Raftery’s Pebble is somewhere in the bowels of the city of Melbourne.
Elizabeth McKenzie got wind of this story and asked me to try writing something for Tinteán. Hence: Journey of a Pebble. Thanks Elizabeth.
Journey of a Pebble
In time and imagination
some poems
and things to do with poets
become free
like gossip bursting
into newer shape and colour,
like secret codes or
rootless tarot messages
that we pass on
by the day, year – century.
I kept a singing pebble
from Raftery’s grave in Killeeneen
in my pocket.
It was my word – my song
– a brushstroke in the sky
and, even if it never promised
to be faithful, I was sad
when it dropped into a gully
as I was walking about
near Flinder’s Street Station in Melbourne.
Later I felt satisfied – I had passed it on.
|
