A Poetic Road

Tramore-Waterford Road

I was driving home to Tramore from Waterford City (8 miles) this morning along a road that is beyond familiar to me and one that is steeped in memories, presentness, and probable tomorrows.

All the years, six abandoned cottages have caught my eye but I  jumped to attention in the last few days as there seems to be a lot of ‘clearing’ going on which makes me fear that there will be gaps where once there were places that made me ponder and wonder.

So, I took the time today to stop and take photographs of these reminders of times past.

The fact that it is National Poetry Day was another thought that was very much on my mind and I found myself re-visiting Michael Coady’s poem, Letting Go, which I wrote about a while back.

Here it is again:

Letting Go

I love the abandon

of abandoned things

 

the harmonium surrendering

in a churchyard in Aherlow,

the hearse resigned to nettles

behind a pub in Carna,

the tin dancehall possessed

by convolvulus in Kerry,

the living room that hosts

a tree in south Kilkenny.

 

I sense a rapture 

in deserted things

 

washed-out circus posters

derelict on gables,

lush forgotten sidings

of country railway stations,

bat droppings profilgate

on pew and font and lectern,

the wedding dress a dog 

has nosed from a dustbin.

 

I love the openness

of things no longer viable, 

I sense their shameless

slow unbuttoning;

the implicit nakedness

there for the taking,

the surrender to the dance

of breaking and creating.

 

(Michael Coady: from 20th Century Irish Poems selected by Michael Longley, 2002, Faber and Faber)

 

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