Voices Along the Liffey
There's times I've thought
for all the rush,
that days on end we sleep aloud.
Time is always timing out,
we cannot seem to catch it there,
how fast we try and run it down.
I thought it when I had the time,
a day I walked the Liffeys' side
and tried my best to go her lazy pace.
As I moved I tried to watch
the movement like a stranger looking in,
and swear I could just hear the tick,
(as if the morning had a sound
for light to fade in such a way)
and watched the ground its shadows grow,
then dusted off, off they went,
as what had been the morning now the after too,
was quick,
and all the quicker as I watched.
It never stopped!
I could not win!
It's such a pity, such a trick!
What do we keep,
when nothing's said and nothing's kept
And if they are, what then, forget?
What solidarity keeps a thought
as thin as air?
The only truth I've seen repeat,
is just that days are fashioned new
from each re-cycled sound,
and all the things are repetitions
IF we really think them down.
Why hold so tight the time
that comes with nothing new?
Or the sun and moon and stars,
or easy days that fade to easy dreams.
They too become unconscious sounds,
with familiar scenes. We do just as we dream.
(Actions come from something like the air)
Brick by brick,
She fashions up her streets for here and now,
as though she knows of nothing else.
But still she uses old for new,
the trick of time we all forget.
And as I walk along the Liffey now,
I hear the sound of bells across
cathedral spires, that once had marked
the voice of a god.
Copyright © Erin Beckett | Year Posted 2011
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