Bernard Kennedy Poems

In college philosophy I read Camus- La Peste. And now with Covid 19 about it seems a replay. The warnings given to stay home, wear mask and sanitise keep apart.
Enniskerry village empty on New Years Day and Powerscourt within five kilometres I go to the garden.
Acer, Redwood, and myriad display overseen by Sugar loaf mountain. Roses within the walls.
The walled garden with its gates from a sacred place making the garden a mystical point.
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A long avenue guarded in meander by trees and view. A hill and valley, a resting horse and mother's strolling with the child.
A social distance kept in covid time mark three.
And through the courtyard, to the walled garden, Versailles, Schonbrunn and here through golden leafed gates at Powerscourt the garden is.
Both essence and existence.
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The question mark, symbol, directs this question about covid nineteen and lockdown isolation.
The rainbow moment not quite showing. That time after storm when earth makes peace
The pregnant pause, the moment the curtain rises, the final sentence of the play and before applause.
The question 'to be or not to be'.
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The question mark, the symbol,
It directs the question
About covid nineteen.
About virus and lockdown
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I saw the father match his child's hand on the trains window pane,
At the station, before parting. It was like a last contact.
The old woman being helped along a plank on the river bank,
The nursing home residents guided from their rest home in deeper confusion.
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They embraced, in forgiveness,
after years of civil war,
and putrid history,
as death drew near and injuries,
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I was a young altar boy,
at the rail, holding the paten,
the golden plate,
under the chin of communion
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March 24 1980, it rings a bell?
As the bell sounded and chalice raised,
contained the Blood of Christ,
shots rang in El Salvador and
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When I was a young boy the knickerbocker glory
had with it a long spoon to scoop the residue.
and later with bacon and cabbage and mashed potato,
in Dublin, or on St. Patrick's Day, and color of carrot,
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West 47 at morn
times square lit up with smiles
cop handcuff for pose
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