Glenbarrow Poem by Martin Moore

The long abandoned cottage and small holding
Which must have teemed with life so long ago
Now stands silent as nature reclaims it.
A young boy swings from the adjacent beech
His legs balanced on a recycled plastic bench
He calls his sisters name Ad Infinitum
His constant rant, gunfire on a Slievebloom summer evening.

I take the path to the falls and find myself in Utopia
The babbling Barrow below is soothing
My thoughts return to rightful patterns
And simple honest pleasures.
The fresh clean air fills my lungs
I breathe it in deeply and willingly
I feel its goodness in my core

The glen is asleep, in the distance
The sound of rushing water gliding over bedrock
And crashing to the riverbed below, drives me on.
The track winds its way between rock, tree and fern
Undulating along the valley floor
It leads to a small clearing by a wooden hut
A shelter from a summer shower.

A waterfall captures the heart and soul
It concentrates the mind in its gaze
A stark reminder of the futility of our
Preoccupation with life's stress
I allow my mind to wander
It drifts with the current, downstream
For a moment I can see myself standing there.

Such is the magic of water
To cozen the wisdom of years and set free the subconscious
Released it hovers in defiance of gravity
With an unobstructed view of life
A waterfall achieves all this.

On returning as the daylight fades
The line of travel faint
I remember those pitiful cries of spruce
In a wind compelled romance
Their naked trunks and wispy green heads
Lamenting in a forced embrace
The scraping of bark upon unforgiving bark
Casts a shadowy twilight dance
In a world high above
The root patterned, well worn track of Glenbarrow.

There by its fragrant side the casualties lie
The winter storm has laid them to rest
Their roots torn from the earth without ceremony
By its growling winds, now stand awkwardly upright
Like tombstones heralding those rotting corpses all round
The life ebbing from them with the ravages of time.

Yet what beauty to behold for a forgiving eye
As saplings rise to fill the void
They stretch for light and life and
Fill the battlefield again.