November 2nd 2015

Following All Saints we today celebrate All Souls Day. Can you be a saint without being a soul? The only soul that makes sense to me is that sweet music which echoes from Philadelphia and Memphis.

It was an old tradition that the houses in Ireland would never be locked on ‘All Souls Day’ or indeed that night thereby encouraging the souls of dead family members to revisit. All you get now are thieves and burglars so the souls must stay outside.
My father was a different man when he was on the dry and to reflect what I remember of him in both conditions I have penned a little verse to reflect on my recall of him in both stages. This effort at verse is dedicated to him and all those Holy Souls whose birthday it is today.

 My father's Steps.

My father developed a curious walk

After he took the pledge,
Foot-falling spot carefully chosen
As if he were treading a narrow ledge
On the rim of a great lake of porter.

Inhale twice, exhale once,

Between each ponderous pace,
I never saw anything so measured,
Square root of a sober face,
Dry now since October.

Even as he stepped to the side of his bed

To ground his prayers in a trance,
He left just enough room for his knees
As would any lover of the dance,
Hornpipe, jig or reel.

After the pledge he trod carefully,

Never treading on her dreams,
A decade of tears and one of the Rosary
And then it all ended it seems,
To my recalling.

He went back to his random gait again,

Little regard for steady or sure,
Sometimes a rock, often a leaf,
Three months rich, six months poor
At the whim of the demon.

Today in my wanderings it came back clear

In the trees, from my own out loud talk.
Of late my own young man said wryly,
“Dad, tell me about that funny walk
I never noticed before”.