A Poem for Dionne

A POEM FOR DIONNE

(For Nurse Dionne Franklyn, Ward 7 (neurological),

Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, 1990)

As the exact white form of the Moon

Completes her comforting brave-faced round;

Parting the curtains of desolate Night,

Being both symbol and earnest substance of the Light

So you, Dionne the Nurse, traversed and graced

That God-riddled, time-fractured wilderness;

Favoured the huddled Abrahamic tent

Where lay my brain-struck only son

And I, bent over him,

The past a blur, the future blank,

The trackless present freeze-framed in hope

That I might see again a finger move

Or hear a word, or be assured

He knew no pain (Ciaran! My Son! My Son!);

I went colour-blind, tunnel-visioned

Through that sterile land.

No horizon quickened,

No sky shone kind beyond the vitreous sand;

The flowers faded, stiffened as they dried.

Wall-eyed, I carried him when he tearless cried.

But you bathed him with your gentle humour,

Buoyed him with photos of your dippy dog -

"Here's Kally with a big blue balloon in her teeth!

And she didn't even burst it! Imagine!" –

Then that morning

When you bade him choose a T-shirt

And he slowly raised

A palsied hand.

A hand heavier to lift

And more profound

Than all the Moon-bound oceans

Of the round blue Earth.

(Excerpt from “Bogha-frois san Oidhche/ Rainbow in the Night”, The Handsel Press, 1997)

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See also "Let Us Not Yet Speak of Love"

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