When Dr. Katherine Zappone was launching Michael Murphy’s Book of Dreams, I introduced her as the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. And she responded in her languid and educated American tones “Dearest Michael! If I may be so bold as to correct a distinguished author: I am the Minister of children who dream!” I wrote the concluding poem in my Collected Poems to honour her and her late partner Dr. Ann Louise Gilligan, whose pioneering struggle paved the way for marriage equality. A paraphrase of her remark gave me the overall title for this new collection of thirty-one poems, together with poems in The Republic of Love (2013) and A Chaplet of Roses (2015).
During the summer break in Spain, I like to rise in the cool of the very early morning to write. And Toga, my chocolate Labrador, joins me at my desk and sleeps at my feet until about 6 o’clock, when she starts pulling at my typing arm with her paw. It’s time for her walk! We’d be out for about an hour with the stars still in the sky, tramping briskly through the pine woods, or down towards the seashore. And the affectionate poems in this new collection where Toga has become my muse had their genesis on those companionable walks:
To understand how love runs to catch us up
And now accompanies us lightly every day
Is a miraculous vision my dog has lived out in my presence
So that I too have become a wonderful creature
Loving and loved in her service
Truly human
And I am truly blessed
There are other poems I wrote to honour my friends. Barbara and Tiernan held an imaginative celebration on Inishboffin for their sixtieth birthday and their daughter Carla’s twenty-first, and I wrote the Love that is Always Here poem about them as a meaningful gift:
To be counted a friend by the two of you Barbara and Tiernan
Is a gift which supports us with hope
In the end it pledges we are worthy somehow
Of love
Of being free
Of belonging somewhere
Seated around the table of your lives
Breaking bread with wise friends companionably
Nourishing our souls with sacred conversations
That we can have with no one else
That allow us to be more like ourselves
Similarly when Jill and Dan got married in Rome, I put that internationally elegant occasion into the words of Eternally Yours. They gave the framed poem pride of place in their living-room:
When I make this solemn promise
Say I do to a new way of life
I’m confidently saying yes to you
That I will be your wife
That I will take my place beside you
And support the hope this formal pledge implies
For both of us
That we shall stand together
That our love will last forever
However long or short our lives may be
In the end you can rest assured
That now I am
Eternally yours…
The Breslin brothers Andy and Barry with exceptional generosity brought RTE colleagues and myself to the States for performances at the Irish Arts Center and in the Irish Consulate General in New York, so the least I could do was write them a poem in thanksgiving, entitled Brothers:
The Breslins granted entrance for one who married in
To the liminal language of brothers
The secret glance the slight smile
That imperceptible nudge of fraternal feeling
They included me in humour
Allowing access to a new world of linguistic possibilities
Handing me a further family of words
Grounded in the life of an Irish town
To illuminate the wider world
Way beyond my fondest imaginings
They gifted to me once again
The strength of loving brothers…
I have enjoyed writing the heartfelt poems in this new collection. When I look through the Collected Poems, I see that everywhere I’ve been writing about love. In the poem A Life For Love:
The purpose of life is to love
I have come to such an understanding later
Which requires a more adult approach
Than the human-lite notion
That you have to love everybody
Oh no you don’t
Love is very precious
To be shared only with a chosen few
Love is the highest value that there is
I choose to live a life for love
Forgiveness
In the poem Elysium, I write about my partner Terry:
The good I did which brings forgiveness
Which absolves me
And makes me new
Is that I have loved
And been loved
By you…
These poems reveal my soul, and the convictions I have developed from studying human nature. As I write in the poem Enough, my conclusion about life is:
Love was all that mattered
In the end
My hope is that these insights will offer consolation. Enjoy the music!