Depths
Click for meditationRegarding "Depths"
Depths,
Cleansing depths,
Healing depths,
And depths
Available
To all of us
If we can just
Hold long enough
Our breaths…
How deep
Can
We go,
How much do
We want to
Find for what we
Search,
How long,
How deep, no
Matter how
Much it helps when
It hurts…?
Leo Carroll
November 24, 2018
Down, down deep,
Into the depths I
Plunge, sounding for the
Bottom in fathoms
Dive to plumb.
Down, down deep,
The water courses
O’er me, in a protective
Rush of foam
Across my eternity.
Down, down deep,
My body points
In arrow flight, single
In its purpose, its
Object out of sight…
Stone Walls
Click for meditationRegarding "Stone Walls"
In today’s impermanent,
Transitory culture,
Stone walls can speak
To all of us. They stand for
Faithfulness and duty
And enduring accomplishment,
Not only in their own
Continued longevity
And legacy and existence,
But in the homage
They pay to the
Character of those
Who so lovingly
Built them, and whose
Spirits are still
Imbued into each
And every stone lifted and
So carefully placed.
Leo Carroll
April 18, 2018
Where are my children,
My grandchildren and heirs, as
You, you strangers,
Pass me near?
They formed these
Walls, they placed these
Stones, in long ago act to
Carve this home.
And now you come
This November brief, and
Sit the moss my
Walls lone keep…
Tell my children, my
Grandchildren and heirs, I still
Silently stand to all
They did here.
Ode to Dromod’s Field
Click for meditationRegarding "Ode to Dromod’s Field"
In September 2000, two of
My daughters went to Ireland, and
While there visited a cemetery
In County Kerry where some of the
Forebears of my father’s family were buried.
My daughters asked me if I wanted
To accompany them. I told them,
“No,” that I was busy with other
Things I was doing. They persisted in
Asking me. I persisted in
Saying, “no.” And so they went
Alone, to traverse the land
Where four generations before
Some of my ancestors had
Left Ireland. I should have gone.
I knew it even before they
Returned. I could tell in their
Voices over the international
Telephone lines that they
Had touched something
Like a heartbeat or the flesh
Of a palm no longer heard or felt.
I saw the photos when they returned,
And my eyes were overwhelmed
By the power of the images.
And so I came to write this poem of
A burial ground in Dromod, County Kerry,
Which saw the faces of my
Daughters, and in seeing their
Features, saw mine, too…as well as
The likenesses of their sons
And daughters who had left
Long generations before.
Leo Carroll
September 3, 2018
Upon your stones we move about, in
Prayerful search ‘midst this wheat throughout.
We never knew ye, but feel sure, you
Watch us tread this earthen floor.
From thy loins sprang Dromod seed, a
Comely fruit and sweet-isle mead.
These sons and daughters cupped your
Hand, kissed it gently, then sailed your land.
Lo years later, with them long gone,
You see us now as we part these thorns.
We’ve come to say we love you, too, and
Brush these stones etched in dew.
For as we spread these weeds grown
Wild, you see our faces and ken our smiles.
On our faces, likened clear, are the long
Ago images of your children dear.
Know ye then, people of yore, we’ve
Come to sit your lap once more.
Against your breast we commune and sleep, safe
In the warmth your field doth keep.
Pausing
Click for meditationRegarding "Pausing"
The woods can assume in
Posture both what comforts us and
What we fear, sometimes
All at the same time,
Sometimes in whipsawing
Twists and turns, sometimes in
Primeval verse and rhyme,
Sometimes in light and dark hues,
And sometimes in strange
Rustlings and shapes at night.
The woods can be like a
Chameleon, both
Invoking wonder and
Awe, and just as easily
Placing us at a cave mouth,
Where terror howls in the wind,
And where in the bend of the
Spruce — there is wild
Pitch and yaw…
Leo Carroll
June 6, 2018
Ah, yet still to cross…
A stone wall
I can crawl over,
But before doing so
In homage must
Pause, and
Then into the
Timbers, where dark
Are the spruce,
And then an even
Darker opening
Through the
Wood, where
The primeval forest
Greets me in
My mood.
Almost
Click for meditationRegarding "Almost"
Someday
I’ll walk through
That thicket,
Someday, when
My time has
Come, and I’ve
Taken my
Last compass
Reading along
A stone wall
Where I am welcome.
Ah, to enter…
I think I will know
The time when to take
That final step…
I’ll just merge with
The overcast
Of the day,
And step through
Into another
Wood, and it
Will look exactly
Like this wood,
The same,
Except on the
Other side I will
Know of the
People I meet — far
More names.
Leo Carroll
June 4, 2018
Never could be
Found me,
If I truly
Wanted to
Quietly
Disappear
Into this
Maine
Thicket.
Just a few
Further steps
And I would
Be gone,
As if I passed
Through a
Veil’s
Smoky
Mirror, and
Last seen
Of me was
Only a fading
Wisp.