The stairways and chambers of life

go up and down in and out and all around the gravel path that is our life.

No two moments the same nor a recreation of the burning flame

that lights a heart in dark of night with joy or sorrow or fear that the ‘morrow

might come again the same or different with ease or blaze

or solemn gaze; lost amid the maze of confusion that trolls our mind.

What do we find at the end: a closed door locked or unlocked like some nightmare in a pointless sleep pointless to have awakened and recalled.

That gravel path uniformed and neat like those

 we meet in bars or street, sour or sweet, passive or fool,

pessimist or tool; like a ship from a fleet that sank in the deep

amid cries from the deck in a sea of black like playing cards the heart will lose

and the soul of its crew still play the game but what of the price

to drop the dice and swim with no shore in sight; the game’s only won by doing what’s right!

Yesterday on this gravel path I walked carrying a poster of a dead hunger striker from ’81; I stood on the middle of the road halting traffic to make them remember with his picture displayed; and now today with my prayer book in hand Clonard bound I go to read His word into the sound of silence. And like the thief on the cross next to Him I ask the question: Do I sink or swim?