The Sheepdog Diaries (a prelude)

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The Sheepdog Diaries

for Sofia

I. (Prelude)

I bury you in the rock sea.

I hide what you know.

Maybe I even hide it from you.

And maybe when you wake

You will only know the

Wind and the beach,

On terms again with each other;

And the sky and a sea;

Speaking again, forgiving each other

For the spectacle of fear.

Maybe then you will see things differently,

Like something I cannot yet compare

Or even try and convince you is true.

I know now this fundamental thing:

You will learn this for yourself.

That day in Ireland we collected shells

In a howling wind and grey rain

In Kilmore Quey, it was a day

The wind wept for you, knowing what

The wind knows.

John the young boxer said to us over coffee

And breakfast that morning,

“Sometimes there’s a summer of storms.”

Implying these things pass.

John said he is happy now, but his eyes,

They said something else.

Like a spy inside his own skull, they

Said, “Don’t listen to this rubbish. My

Summer of storms has shipwrecked me.”

When we sailed from Kilmore Quey

Leaving John and his young family behind,

It felt like our drinking and dancing

with them the night before had been a wake.

Only I didn’t know it was my own.

You were drowning then and I couldn’t

See it. I had no capacity to believe

In those things that had hurt you.

Nothing like that can hurt a person, I thought.

Not really. Not deep inside.

But you really were sinking and I left you to drown.

I did it in the name of propriety, thinking

How easily you can resurface. But you didn’t.

And it was very late in the emergency when

My own storms revealed the thing to me:

My propriety, It was the propriety of an abused man.

I Was so hardened against believing in my

Own sadness I had no ability

To believe yours.

When the waters swamped us

I admit I was surprised.

I have been fighting my way

Back ever since.