Saint Mary's Church, Castletownroche, Church Of Ireland.

Virtual Post Cards!

...Just up the road!

The Front Graveyard.

Looking back towards the church.

Away from the Church looking towards the old Mill in the distance.

The old Mill in the distance as a storm rolls through!

I would have loved to managed pics of the inside but it was late in the day on a Bank Holiday so... 

More posts soon!

My Poem Poster goes up in "Cheers."

Back on the 26th I posted a poem "That Sweet Weekly Agony:" on this blog. I will be reading it during my reading and here is a poster picture of the poem that will be tacked up in the "Cheers Bar" in Fermoy to advert the festival! 

This is me presenting the poster to "Conor McNulty" the head bartender! 

Way Cool! 

Raw milk and Soda bread in the morning!

Where do I begin? From the moment I arrived I've felt at home. From Gene and Margo's hospitality to the scent, and feel of things.

I spent Monday with Margo shopping in Cork City. I was spun around at first but eventually came to rest. As I looked around and listened I kept thinking: 

"There goes my brother, my sister, and he looks just like my cousin too!"

After some bank business we began in the English Market. ...and the smells! My nose had a field day! We shopped for clothes and gifts and talked and chatted until finally we stopped back to the Market for evening food. 

I had spotted raw milk the first time through so I asked Margo if she wouldn't mind my buying a bottle. It took a little bit to find the stall I was plesently surprised to meet a "Mary Walsh" the spitting image of my Ma! 

I am sitting here now in the kitchen this morning savoring raw milk and soda bread. I have come home and gone to heaven at the same time!

That sweet weekly agony:

Something NEW from me.On the eve of my trip to Ireland, an "hommage" I was destined to write according to Alan Casline. It came to me as they say "In The Night."

~

That sweet weekly agony:

Where are you now
Sister Mary Margaret
with your Muskerry lilt
and your sea green eyes?

Is it the retirement home
or had you left the order
an birthed your own so?

Are you sadly gone
contentedly now only
asleep in the Lord?

Do you know
I still remember
the scented spice
of your hand?
You laughed
calling it: "Eau
de Ho-lee."

Do you know
I still remember
those Saturday
mornings
learning rhymes?

When my brother
stayed home
to watch Mighty Mouse
Tom & Jerry
Heckle and Jeckle
and I shucked off to you?

This scared
frustrated kid
you taught to read
with rhyme
came to love you
looking forward
eventually not only to you
but the poetry as well
the two forever
intwined.

This endless rhymist
you set spinning off
through life
a tool kit of words
finely grasped
only basically
within these hands then.

Where ever
you are now
Sister Mary Margaret
Thank-you
for the gift of my lifetime!

It took all these years
to recognize
the mustard seed
and it's sower.

The soil was good
crop successful.

"Amen to that now,
Amen and Amen."



© Mark W. Ó Brien
21/July/14

I had an epiphany today! A real life "Mountain Top" experience!

This is a picture of one of my oldest embedded memories. The view from the back window of my father's 1960 (Surf Green) Chevy Impala! 

I remember thinking, "Whoa! That is high! Some day I'm going to climb that!" 

I am convinced that this embedded view was a main reason why I chose to live in Clarksville. I didn't realize it of course until well into my first year of occupancy.

Just the other day on the way home I said to myself: "Yes, some day I will park in that lot and switchback up there." 

The reality is I have climbed many peaks, many of which are far higher and much steeper. 

BUT! None were more satisfying than today's hike. Because this is Wolf Hill! The location of the "Keleher Preserve!" 

When I realized from the initial view through the trees that I was peering at this intersection from the top of the hill I went "Berserk!" 

I started jumping up and down and laughing! Alan Casline thought I was nuts at first! (Of course he already knew or at least suspected this...) ;)

You can see him up the trail here in this picture.

This is looking back at Copland Hill in the distace near the foggy horizon with the Birkshires (Massachusetts) in the far distance.

I have accomplished one of my boyhood dreams and hadn't realized it until I had done it! 

Isn't this so like everything in life? There is JOY everywhere! Some days you simply have to look up!

~

Mark W. Ó Brien

19/July/14

'...as if to honor both the sickness and the fear...'

I confess
it was a long walk
long walk
long walk back
I confess

I was not happy

Oh you
diplomat of grief
negotiating to and fro
the ins and outs of despair
speeding through the sky
while you watched me
slowed down like a
hot shower

in January still
shaking your head instead
of nodding it and stayed
sitting there at the little
kitchen table seeking
someone weeping
in the
halls of

heavens sake.

~

My head, aflame
with the deep
I didn't intend
to write any of this
here

only, old codgers
who knew these
things were simply, suddenly
there I had woken

it was a long walk
long walk
long walk back
and I showered until
I was no longer

the night.

© obeedúid~
15/Feb/14

Always the Ingénue, never the Lead:

And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." 

He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car."

I remember the first time I heard Arlo say those lines. I was in my room, the sound was coming through the wall and it was being produced by the LP on my brother Jim's Sears Wildcat Portable Stereo.

That stereo, after it came home from college with him, after his car accident and subsequent months in the hospital in a coma (in which I believe he taught our mother "Saint Doris" a few words Jesus hadn't meant for her to hear.) never left that spot on his desk where he played solitaire, smoked "Players Straights" and listened to music after walking the dog and blowing a doobie. Even if it were portable, that thing and the cigarette ashes on top of it never moved, until it was replaced years later, when he moved out and into a commune, as I took my turn in the front room in my senior year of High School.

In High School "Officer Obie" became synonymous with being a "Narc." Something no one in the culture of the 70s wanted to be identified with. Kids being kids, me having the name O'Brien, that was the first thing that was said to me if you were intending to insult me or pick a fight. As I was the guy most of my friends bought their pot from, this did not go over well or happen often.

So, we chuckled and teased each other, my brothers and I, calling each other by turn, this insult with affection and shared knowledge. If you were one of us, it was cool. If you were not, God help you and the wrath of Irish brothers in a group! (Not to mention the displeasure of an Irish sister, who could whip the four of us at any moment, in any way she fashioned.)

Now it is with mixed feelings and a knowing smile, that I image my deceased brothers faces, when if I had had the chance to tell them, what I realized the other day: Housatonic, Richmond, Richmond Furnace, West Stockbridge, Pittsfield and Lenox Massachusetts. Our O'Brien relatives are all over this place. Right where Arlo was talking and singing about. 

From my research I'd say there is a better than 98% chance any "Officer Obie" real or imagined, that might have said: "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." he was one of "Us."

Today of course, I couldn't give-a what you thought of me, and it has been a lifetime since I smoked a doobie, let alone sold one. You want to call me "Officer Obie" go right ahead, if you are one of "Us" it's cool. If you're not, that's cool too.

I imagine my brothers are up there right now, punching each other in the arm and laughing:

 "See, I told ya, jerk, your turn to flip the record." 

"I got it last time." 

"Get me a beer while you're up, or I'll kick your little Irish ass! An make sure ya don't scratch it neither!"

"Yes sir "Officer Obie!"





© obeedúid~ 
29/Jan/14