The Unquiet Land

excerpt

Only you. I’d be going to the church even if Father Riordan were still there. I’ve decided to become a Catholic.”
Michael stared at Caitlin as if her words had dumbfounded him.
“Well, don’t look so surprised,” she said. “Everyone else in the village belongs to one Church or another. You were baptized a Catholic. You belong to the Church. Why shouldn’t I? I was baptized too, you know.”
“But your father, Caitlin,” Michael protested. “He won’t hear of you becoming a Catholic, baptized or not. You know how strongly he feels against religion.”
“He won’t be pleased, that’s true.” Caitlin glanced over her shoulder as if she expected her father to be there, standing with his back to the barn, listening. “But he sha’n’t disown me or drive me from home. He respects people’s rights to live their own lives in their own way. He does not love Padraig any less for being a priest.”
“So what has you becoming a Catholic have to do with you and me?” Michael asked awkwardly. “Why have you been avoiding me?”
Then Caitlin understood what Michael’s concern was. She took his two rough hands in hers and looked into his eyes with serious intent. “We have to stop sleeping together, Michael.”
His mouth opened as if he were going to say something, but no words came out. He felt his heart sink. He drew his hands free from Caitlin’s, stared down at his coarse working boots for an anguished moment or two, then raising his head again he said, “Why, Caitlin? Why?”
“To make love when we are not man and wife is sinful,” Caitlin replied, still with her eyes fixed on Michael’s face. “God will punish us for it unless we repent and resist further temptation by the Devil. I’ve repented.”
“That’s not you talking, Caitlin. That’s not you. That’s Padraig. He said that. Didn’t he?” Michael’s tone of voice was bitter.
Caitlin made no reply. Her silence turned Michael’s anguish to anger.
“Those are a priest’s words,” he said. “Padraig’s words.”
“Don’t blame Padraig. Please, Michael. Any priest would say the same. It’s in the Bible.”
“It suits Padraig though, doesn’t it?” Michael stepped back a pace. “He may be a priest but he’s also a man. And as a man he’s jealous. He can’t have you himself, so he doesn’t want anyone else to have you.”
“Michael, that’s not fair. You’re talking like the gossips in the village. Is that what you’ve been doing? Listening to the louts in the Harbour Bar? What do you think Finn MacLir would say to that?”

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Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume I

Ocean’s March

Pelagic birds in light and salinity
dreams of voyages large sails
our ears unsealed to the Siren’s songs
our eyes vigilant
There is neither smoke nor Ithaca
Horizons don’t have any other horizon
The eternal song of open sea answers to the void
and fills the nothing with heart and sun
Ocean’s March 87
Oh nights of storms
whipping illuminated winds
wave-froths on the windowpanes
the smoky lamps of fishermen’s houses
terror of sorrowful girls
mending socks of émigrés
sleepless lighthouses with eyes of mothers
and the immense sea is merciless
like the thought of god
wild tender and untamed
like the hearts of poets

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Übermensch

Philosopher
We left the hospital and with hands joined we crossed
the bridge, translucent water below us like the thoughts
in our minds. Suddenly rain started as if cleansing us
from our sins when we arrived at the philosopher’s dwelling.
We knocked at a door ravaged by the elements. There
was a time we would give our lives for the stamina of youth
though now we seek the wisdom of the golden years;
the philosopher opened his home joyfully like his heart.
He answered all our questions, ‘philosophy always
presents one answer to the question while religion
claims their answer is the only one, and there lies
their difference.’
Übermensch admired the clarity of his thoughts and
after He hugged him tenderly in a trembling voice
He said:‘he is another Übermensch, follow
his teachings.’

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Small Change

excerpt

I started slowly, but it was hard to keep a firm grip on the square
bars caked with rust and flaking paint. I’d never make it unless I built
up a rhythm and let my weight swing me from one to the other. Once I
got going, the momentum made it seem easy and I felt propelled by an
immense exhilaration as I approached the safety of the other side. I gave
what must have sounded like a Tarzan yawp of triumph and began to climb
down. That’s when I heard Buster’s absurdly military command.
“Halt! You ain’t ‘nitiated yet, pal. Yuh gotta jump down, inta dat
pile o coal.” The flunkeys laughed and nodded their heads. I hung there,
my arms shivering with exertion, my fingers and palms bruised raw, my
knees weak, and tried to gauge how much force it would take to launch
myself out far enough to land in the rice coal that looked like a hill of black
sand. But they had built a fire out of discarded newspaper, old brown bags,
and small sticks about half way up. I’d have to land well above that, or get
burned. The coal pile stood under the bridge between the two columns.
There was no way I could reach the other side of the fire from where I
was dangling from the column’s iron gridwork. I climbed back up, pulled
myself onto the bridge, and crossed the tracks to the other side. I heard
shouts from below. They hadn’t counted on this, but they never said I had
to jump from where I was and I slipped through the railing, swung a few
times and let go, angling back toward the dune that glittered with sharp
edged particles in a shaft of sun as I dropped like a stone, praying that the
coal would cushion my fall enough to keep me from breaking anything.
I sank up to my knees and waded awkwardly down to where Buster and
the others were crouched around the dying flames. Buster reached behind
him and tugged a curved silver flask from his back pocket. “Yuh done
good!” he said, loosening the cap that dangled from a short chain as he
took a long pull then handed it over. The whisky burned all the way down
and fumes got up my nose. I thought I’d choke and look stupid, but when
the fire hit my stomach it spread out and softened and I managed to grin
and hand back the flask. Buster capped it and put it back in his pocket.
Once again I thought the ritual was over and I waited for some
indication that I was now a Blue Daemon, but it never came. Instead,
Buster walked through the crisp shadow of the bridge and out to a flat
grassy space in the sun. The gang broke roughly in half and formed into
two long lines that stretched from where I stood to the open ground where
Buster was grinning at me.

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