After the Swamps and Lagoons
After the swamps and lagoons of my first eleven years
It was a shock to arrive at the grey peppery land of bricks and mortar
In all its savagery ...
A loam of marl ......wreathed in worship... of Italian Males in Drag...
Frocked and Robed... their
Lusty ruby ringed fingers wagging No No No
At the aggregate who writhed with zig-zag fear in their superstitious eyes.
Gone was the warm dust between my toes... the nectarines upon my cheeks
Instead ... rows of sooty granite and
Prim brick diggings smothering in nets. *(net curtains)
The carefree walk along the open dusty tracks.. ....severed ..taken
To be a ride upon a reeking.... lunging bus .. a million miles away.
Rain wet ...unwashed bodies with that certain smell
Of something ancient and far from lemon blossom.
Propelled... packed in dishevelled rows of upright mortals
Travelling on that stenched and sorry bus
Forward wrapped in pessimism of trammelled poverty ...
Bitter history....Brow stricken.. stabbed with Easter Ash....
Pre-programmed blessings at the passing church ...all this
Left me curling somewhere near the floor beside my school bag with
Visions of Pohutukawa trees and forest ferns fading into fickle time.
After the swamps and lagoons that had been the pearl of life
The Sylvan Avenue of botanic efflorescence spun off into trajectory , became it’s own dominion..
Here was the Rathgar Road...begrimed and cruddy slipping down the tarmac hill
To sorrowful Rathmines..the grimey poxy cinema and the towering big Lees.
Small catatonic shrubs were faultering in stiff mean gardens,
Tight paths walked up to morbid doors...pained in reluctant opening
Revealing of its beige ...brown dark secret thoughts and walls..
Pictures of pumping blood full hearts placed upon the golden skin of God..
Each winter’s day a dense chill encircled unheated veins
..heavy clothes weighed everything down...stern shoes in joyless step
Cloud after mist tore at the lungs...breaking tissue down to a wheeze...
Little to do save ...sit at a window ...a slow pulse in place of a happier heartbeat.
A wild faun was being tamed...locked in by wounding fences
So apprehended in this bastille my vision dimmed
I only saw the bars and not the sky beyond
There was No escape and no apology that this was so.
I never spoke of it ...that did not occur. It was a time when there was,
That way of being looked upon much as an inanimate object devoid of feeling..
One who served no other purpose than to obey
No. No was the word.
No was the only word in this New Dreary Land.
Kristine Byrne 1st april..2011.