Blood Memory

In rhythmic motion on the shore,
A hearth from yore like scarlet glass
Catches the rays of twinkling Sol—
And jade waves roll, the sand like brass.
A bonfire left by long-gone friends:
A lonely man it lends an ear.
Touched by light and encircling heat,
The real heart beats; the soul is clear.

His spirit yearns for Uilleann pipes,
And tartan stripes wound round his waist.
The carnyx horn sounds like a call
To take up arms and fall in place.
He mouths the Old World’s Gaelic tongue;
For one who’s young, the language is
The herald of an ancient dawn—
A life that’s gone and is not his.

A fairer world lies in his dreams;
The green glen teems with endless joy.
Escape from concrete, work, and stone:
Now run back home, young Celtic boy.
He lives these moments often now.
“I disavow the rotten world
That strands me in modernity.
God, take pity!”—he is unheard.

Turn to friends? Oh, they’d never know
The glow he feels when he beholds
A better life, untethered by
The nine to five, the corporate fold.
“Your heritage must be hated.
Come be sedated, little calf.
Your culture is dead.” Then they smirk.
“Now worship work. Eat, drink, and laugh.”

But for that man whose soul flies free,
What sea of work can satisfy
Distant, blood-etched, homeward callings,
Or that howling, homeless cry?
Ancestral mem’ry reigns on high
In heart and mind; the body shakes.
Displacement, longing, and distress—
No anodyne for the heartache.

So man sits by his fire of dreams,
And contemplates all that he lacks.
A short ways down, still other lights:
Soul flames bright in the onyx black.
Many fires on the endless sand,
Grand, raw oaths sworn by sword and pen,
Voices strained in homeward calling—
Bodies falling. “They’re only men.”