Ronnie McGinn's Poetry Page

A few years ago I came across a little book of poems called "Crossing the Threshold" by Cormac Daly.

At that time Cormac was a young poet living in Kerry and trying to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

He told me he found his writing was forever evolving and seemed to almost move in front of him waiting for him to catch up to his own ideals in matters forever composing and decomposing.

'The Gardener' is a poem based around a walk under a starry sky with a lady named Eimear on a country road in Kerry on Valentine's Night.

The poem encompasses the area of Slibh Mish Mountains, myth and folklore namely Queen Scotia's Grave, the Fisher King and Chucullain's battle with the waves as recounted in the famous poem by Yeats.

The poem also draws on Carl Jungs archetypes of the gardener, the fool or trickster, the hero and the wise old man that were all part of the conversation.

The Gardener

The gardener dug for diamonds
while the dead queen danced,
Under the ink-blue mountains
gods are not ring-fenced.

On a bridge of romantic-reality
loves fool ever touched my wrist,
This swimming dream went naked
through waters, wounded kings fish.

Just as heaven knows no weeping
for heroes left fighting tides,
Our minds find shadowy places
that echo shrill battle cries.

People can be consumed
by a myth their path resembles,
In the heart of what happens
the wisdom of old men trembles.

© Cormac Daly