The Parting Glass
An poem in praise of a song
The Parting Glass
Money, may it come and go.
Let this intimacy remain
warm womb of my memory.
Where all harm done is forgotten
simply by keeping good company.
As I deflect this moment
with gay wit and repartee,
understand I do wish
to stay. Though part of me
is always already gone,
and may never return.
It’s for the best money enough
never reached me. Nor leisure
time to follow my heart’s desire.
But there is one love living in me,
In the homeplace of my heart with
eyes alive to see me like no other.
It sets my heart on fire, no wonder
I cannot remain in one place long
with so my heart beguiled. And so
Our friendship is a merciful mirror
where I see my face, and hear my voice.
And lovers, whether false or true, remain
the only legend to parse my past. Did I part
being wished one more day to stay?
Or told to go - risen, fallen to my lot?
Nevertheless let me go, softly,
gently rising to my call. My wish
for you is to stay. Sustain this
Memory of joy, let this moment
become eternal, an horizon setting,
orbital. Filling the dawn in you. Rise
only your spirit, friend, until we meet again.
Unpublished poem by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin
To learn a song is to allow it to shape you. The same is true for poetry. It is ten years since I set out to enlarge my dedication to poetic recitation in earnest. First, I became a drummer, practicing hunched over my wooden framed drum, the bodhrán, until my arms cramped and a bright bruise appeared on my inner forearm. The rhythm and repetition kindled a deep space in me as I came to know the foundations and gears of Irish traditional music. This determination to find, mimic, and embody a deeper rhythm has served me as much as it has afflicted me. Twenty years ago, I was invited to accompany The Chieftains on bodhrán for a full night of their music. Their percussionist, Kevin Conneff, was unable to attend a prestigious concert that this Irish traditional supergroup were performing in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Looking back on it now I was, perhaps, a little young and certainly a little inexperienced for this level of event, but I and sang a song that night to a high enough standard and loved it. I did not receive a call back from this legendary travelling circus again, but it is a memory and a milestone in my performative life which I cherish.
The learning of the rhythms of the concert did, in fact, shape me as during my usual deadline surfing flurry of rehearsal in the days before the concert I began to experience quite sharp chest and neck pains.
