These poems appear in John Montague's forthcoming collection
Speech Lessons, published by the Gallery Press, which will be launched in Dublin on June 23rd
Patience and Time
Winifred Montague (1900-1983)
Patience and time
will bring the snail
to Jerusalem . . .
my Aunt Winifred’s favourite saying
as she sits playing Patience
after she had spent hours
mucking out the byre,
wearing man’s boots or wellies
then straddling the runnel
to wash it down.
Or wheeling the barrow
heavy with dung to
the mound of the dunghill:
hardly the occupation
for a bright convent girl
summoned all the way
from college quad to farmyard
when Ireland divided
and her brothers slid into bankruptcy.
(Or balanced on a stool,
leaning against the warm
flank of a feeding heifer,
squeezing and squirting
the swollen teats until
they fill the frothing pail.)
Patience and time
bring the snail to Jerusalem:
I see the tiny pilgrim
on his gleaming liquid course;
his periscopic horns,
his silver slide forward.
(Or whirling the churn,
the slosh of the cream,
until a yellow gleam
lights the small window:
I glimpse the Golden Dome
of his tireless dream.)
In the winter evenings,
Patience or Solitaire,
by the tilly lamp.
Card falls on card
upon the baize table:
no matter how hard
there is no complaint,
no thunder against fate.
As numbers mount
from Ace to Ten,
according to suit,
and a red row climbs
beside the black:
Spades against Diamonds,
Clubs against Hearts,
Queens fall on Jacks,
Kings fall on Queens
and the snail halts.
Devotions
for Father Ken Letts
After October Devotions
cigarette-tips glowed
as my old neighbours
jostled at the chapel gates
or under the big tree,
for their shy autumnal chat
before their bicycle lamps
drew wobbly circles
upon the darkness while
they flowed homewards
over the country roads,
to Brackagh, Tychany,
Rarogan and Altcloghfin.
(From the gaslit church
the sound of Aunt Winifred
running once again through
an old hymn: ‘Faith of our Fathers’
or ‘Tantum Ergo Sacramentum’,
on the creaking harmonium.)
Folding my surplice,
sometimes i joined them,
sometimes raced home.
If I were to return now
would their friendly shades
part to receive me,
offering a light from
a frail match shielded
in an old jacket’s fold?
John Montague
