MIKE GALLAGHER

MIKE GALLAGHER

ROW BACK

Petulant sun quarrels with crabbed sky

It probes, prods, sneaks

Through gaps in broken cloud,

Catches the crests of waves that roll

In deep swells across the estuary.

Gales lash the craggy headland

Pummel long-stemmed grass into submission;

Rain shards pierce weathered faces

And wrens search out the whin’s snug core.

It is midsummer’s day and Nature rages:

Brother Man, row back, row back,

Our world is not, is not, yours to destroy.

INSTINCT

A solemn gathering -  the earnest poets,

philosophers and theologians versed

in weft of word and erudite discourse,

the rudiments of life and death obsessed;

pet theories threshed, pet propositions flashed,

fresh theses so politely sent to bed,

old certainties dispatched with such panache.

And yet, was aught of import  really said?

The more that we are shown, the less we see,

nothing within our ken is absolute,

reason is but licence to disagree -

gut man has known for long his utmost truth:

just like the ass, the ape, the stupid fly,

survive to sally forth and multiply.

FERN

Dromawda,

Day of the Wren.

I pick a hart’s- tongue fern

On its leaf are hieroglyphs

Dark brown gnarls that bear

A message more ancient

Than script or scripture

Than language or dialect

Than ogham or rune.

It was etched before

Stone-age drawings

Before Torah or Thoth

Before religion or writing

Before Greece or Rome

Before philosophy

Before theology.

Before Adam.

It tells of

Survival, of renewal

Of harmony, of balance

Of beauty, of tolerance.

Writ by nature,

It asks

When will man

Learn to read?

MIKE GALLAGHER