Dream of the Rood; St Patrick’s Day, 2041

Dream of the Rood

So! I will sing    the sweetest dream,

that made its mode    in the middle night

while beer-swillers    belched on benches,

Syllicre trēow,    the truest of trees,

gilded, gifted,    with gems embedded.

“The Lord of Heaven    leapt to my limbs

to forgive your guilt    by giving his life.”

Lifted in air,    laved in its light,

it had five jewels    enjambed in its tree-gum.

This came in sleep    to a sorrowful soul

swimming in sin,    stained dark by evil.

When the Master motions,    miracles happen.

On Good Friday,    gravest of feast days,

I crawl to the rood    to kiss its crosspiece.

St Patrick’s Day, 2041

When you open this letter,

I shall be lost at sea,

but I shall be your debtor

for the love you bore to me,

half Irish as I am,

half lion and half lamb.

Danny, I sail the seas

to the Enchanted Isles

with salmon in their leas,

where every boy that smiles

beats on a goat skin drum,

grinning ’til Kingdom come.

Mower’s Song

The boy who mows my yard

thinks that he once was I.

He pushes pretty hard

under the prairie sky.

He has no belching motor

or right-hand discharge chute,

no madly whirring rotor,

and he’s no longer cute.

Just a front-mounted reel

geared to a rubber wheel,

and that is how the grass

made on the Lord’s Third Day

will fall as fragrant hay

until I too shall pass.

Tim Murphy