Vigil by Dennis O'Driscoll
#Life is too short to sleep through.Stay up late, wait until the sea of traffic ebbs,until noise has drained from the worldlike blood from the cheeks of the full moon.Everyone else around you has succumbed:they lie like tranquillised pets on a vet's table;they languish on hospital trolleys and friends' couches,on iron beds in hostels for the homeless,under feather duvets at tourist B&Bs.The radio, devoid of listeners to confide in,turns repetitious. You are your own voice-over.You are alone in the bone-weary towerof your bleary-eyed, blinking lighthouse,watching the spillage of tide on the shingle inlet.You are the single-minded one who hearstime shaking from the clock's fingertipslike drops, who watches its handschop years into diced seconds,who knows that when the church belltolls at 2 or 3 it tolls unmistakably for you.You are the sole hand on deck whentemperatures plummet and the hullof an iceberg is jostling for prominence.Your confidential number is the life-linewhere the sedated long-distance voicesof despair hold out muzzily for an answer.You are the emergency services' driverready to dive into action at the firstwarning signs of birth or death.You spot the crack in night's façadeeven before the red-eyed businessmanon look-out from his transatlantic seat.You are the only reliable witness to whenthe light is separated from the darkness,who has learned to see the dark in its truecolours, who has not squandered your life.
Art by Gürbüz Doğan Ekşioğlu
DennisODriscoll #Vigil # #Poetry
