That what the heart has understood...

“That what the heart has understood can verify in the body’s peace”

It was our poem:

“Meeting Point”

The walk at Salthill; the faerie tree; The Kitchen; Bewley’s; the D.I.T.

And so we had some meeting points.

But this time we met met. We met the way we thought we did those other times.

We met the way we had both known we did but never disclosed.

For fear?

I saw fear on the burren when I kissed you beneath the wind – and I met you there against the limestone.

Fear of –

Fear that –

Fear for –

Melodramatics?

This couldn’t be real. We must be playing these roles. Acting these feelings, this passion, our romance.

But this time we confessed: I’m not an actress. And you are no actor. But you knew that. All along. And there was the fear.

-circa 2000

Crossing the sea

Meeting Point

This blog is named after one of my favorite poems of all time, Meeting Point by Louis MacNiece. It was introduced to me by a charming Irish photographer I had the privilege of getting to know years ago after I met him with a book of poetry in his back pocket. We were kindred spirits, and I think always will be.

I thought it only appropriate to include the poem before going any further with this project:


Time was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving stairs)
Time was away and somewhere else.

And they were neither up nor down;
The stream's music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffee shop
And they were neither up nor down.

The bell was silent in the air
Holding its inverted poise -
Between the clang and clang a flower,
A brazen calyx of no noise:
The bell was silent in the air.

The camels crossed the miles of sand
That stretched around the cups and plates;
The desert was their own, they planned
To portion out the stars and dates:
The camels crossed the miles of sand.

Time was away and somewhere else.
The waiter did not come, the clock
Forgot them and the radio waltz
Came out like water from a rock:
Time was away and somewhere else.

Her fingers flicked away the ash
That bloomed again in tropic trees:
Not caring if the markets crash
When they had forests such as these,
Her fingers flicked away the ash.

God or whatever means the Good
Be praised that time can stop like this,
That what the heart has understood
Can verify in the body's peace
God or whatever means the Good.

Time was away and she was here
And life no longer what it was,
The bell was silent in the air
And all the room one glow because
Time was away and she was here.

On the Burren

Had I been there alone

I would have only seen

Grassy paths and piled stone

Fences quadranting green.

But on those paths with him

We lost one thousand years.

Progress fled as a whim

And held time in arrears.

The limestone stretched below

The paths our feet pursued.

The clouds removed Sun's glow

And wind made noise subdued

With sly snapshots we stole

The fog and myriad greens.

We captured on a roll,

Our moments and our scences.

The rushing of wind

Above a niche in stone

Held ancient song and sin

We replayed as our own.

In the absence of time

And under fog's covers

This corner in the lime-

Stone held us as lovers.

-circa 2001