The Magi and the Fox
Cousins arrived in polished shoes
And Sunday best
Contrasting with the ragged,
Soot-faced wren-boys
Who had just left,
Coins rattling in a tin cup.
"Soft day, thank God" they said.
Smell of damp coats
Drying near the fire
Steam rising with laughter.
I, nonchalantly, examined
The figurines in the crib
With its purple crepe paper
And peeled the warm braided wax
From the tall red candle
Moulding it into a fox
Who joined the magi
Beneath the Bethlehem star.
The Acolyte and the Olympian
It was 6 am, mist rising from the river
As I crossed Sarsfield Bridge
To the Franciscan church
To serve the Latin mass for a visiting American priest.
Alb and starched white surplice in a Besco bag.
I hoped I would know when to kneel and stand,
To remember to genuflect when crossing
The tabernacle that housed the sacred host.
To ring the bell when chalice and
Sacramental bread was raised aloft.
In the vestry, I laid out the priest's robes,
Put water and wine in little glass jugs.
The clergyman seemed ordinary before
He donned those garments.
But when he kissed the stole
And draped it over his shoulders
He was sanctified by ritual.
Just like the way he patted his lips
With a white linen napkin
After he supped the blood of Christ.
He gave me a silver dollar and I was wowed
Until I learned that the coin was
Worthless currency in my hometown.
So I placed it on the railway track
And it was flattened by a passing train
Into a large disc.
I drilled a hole in it and hung it around my neck
With my sister's green ribbon.
A second best Olympian.
"In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen."
Raspberries
Each day you turned your back on the city
When the setting sun freed you from tedious toil.
You followed the light, westward, to home and hearth.
In that first summer of loss
Memories were as bounteous as raspberries
On the cane.
And I marvelled at how both replenished,
Even when I had plucked the branches bare,
New crops appeared with new dawns.
I still harvest the soft fruit of those summer seasons.
My fingers stained with the blood of those berries,
Crushed for their sacred ink.
Tender Perennial
The bare branches of winter trees
That seemed sketched in charcoal
Against a pale spring sky
Begin to sing in feathered song
And fledgling leaves in hints of green
Quiver in the dawn –
Drinking light in thirsty gulps.
Today I will plant
The window boxes again.
Some half-sheltered begonias
Survive the frost –
And I think of you,
A tender perennial,
Who did not!
You have flown to perch far off
In half remembered things.
But I will always think of you
When scarlet blossoms
On my sills and trees begin
To stretch their wings.
It’s a Wonderful Life
We pull Christmas crackers
Read the silly jokes and riddles
Tie the trinkets to the flashing tree
While wearing coloured paper crowns –
Momentarily regal.
When the turkey is reduced to the
Bones of contentious conversation
About Israel, Palestine and Hamas.
The consensus is, to not speak of that today
For, after all, it is Christmas.
So we leave red wine rings
On the white linen tablecloth
Select a perennial 'feel good' movie -
'It's A Wonderful Life'
Now, there's a snow-globe world
Where everything is black and white.
Kieran Beville is author of Write Now – A Practical Guide to Becoming a Writer (Limerick Writers Centre, 2019). He has had a substantial number of poems and articles published in various newspapers, journals and magazines and five collections of poetry (Revival Press).
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