OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

There's an unstirred stillness about fog. Silence of a Sunday morning, the sun attempting to break through, promising something, delivering nothing. The beautifully haunting cello of Spiegel im Spiegel is the only sound to enter into the day, reminding me of my friend Fr Míceal. We used to listen to it together in the car. It's in the car now that it spontaneously pops up on my playlist.  A high tide blubbers in the chambers of my soul, like the swell of the sea in the crevices of rocks at Ballyloughán. An echo of emptiness in the falling night. A young man on a bench is doing something I've only ever seen in Argentina. He's pouring hot water from a thermos into a gourd cup with a steel straw. I nod at him and say, "Mate" - pronounced mathé, a kind of tea made with bitter herbs. His face breaks into a big smile, delighted at the recognition. A man alone and far from home. We are briefly connected in that moment. Briefly, and perhaps forever. Aloneness hovers a...

Sunday morning in Kilronan, the day after the Gold Digger's gig. Gearoid Browne's place. My friends are sitting at the counter waiting for their coffees and among them is a man unknown to me but known to some of the others. He has taken my seat so I'm wandering around the shop browsing.  The man looks the worse for wear, in need of a cure, hair of the dog which is no cure at all. I later find out that he arrived on the island some years ago, got lost as some do, and never left. He's talking about a song, asking the others if they've heard it - ' Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground ' by Duke Special. None of them have. "I know it" I say. They all turn round to me surprised. The man is pleased. It's like some kind of affirmation to him. An affirmation and a hope. Perhaps it is to me too because I know the song from a fallen time in my life. A reminder of falling and rising. The version I remember is by Beth Rowley f...