TARZAN IN EXILE Comments

to Lorna Griffiths and Jennifer Dufiancatel, at 'Pause Café', Paris
Why was I dry-eyed
The day I buried Dad
But two seasons later
I almost died
Grieving him?

A week after the burial
Did not I cut his grandson's umbilical,
As I still wore my black mourning tie
Swinging like a thurible
Over my newborn child?
Did the nurses look askance at
The clay stain left by his coffin
On the shoulder of my jacket?
I stepped off the Cork plane at Charles de Gaulle
And sped to the maternity,
Still dressed for death
At the feast of birth!

Long ago,
Dad was not carrying packed earth
But me on his shoulders,
Where I rode like a tiny Tarzan on an elephant
Through the bulls, stallions and wethers
At Bantry Fair by the cloudy Atlantic.

I throw back my head,
Heedless of the strolling Parisians -
Long ago was I not taller than their Eiffel Tower?

Not giving a toss for their social niceties,
Or their "comme il faut",
Or the gaping gendarmes
I bare my teeth,
I fill my lungs
With the breezes from the Seine
And
I roar, I roar, I roar
At my highest pitch,
I am Lord of the jungle in exile
But broadcasting
My remounting to an elephant's realm
Whose distant charge I hear,
Already trumpeting
His way over the Atlantic
To join me.
...
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