A while back I posted “Be Still”, a poem by Agnes Hunt RHSM which is displayed on a board at the Holy Family Retreat Centre in Glencomeragh, Co Waterford.
There is a poem on the other side of this board:
Here are the falls themselves:
Here is the text:
The noise alerted me
The sound attracted me
The music held me
At the waterfall.
The reckless rush of water
Wasting itself
Against the hard rocks,
Which tried in vain to repulse it.
They merely enabled it to sing
A new song for each hard rock.
2.
As it slid under me,
Danced over another,
Briefly embraced a third.
As I looked at the many hard rocks –
I heard the many joyous notes –
Notes that would be silent
Were it not for the hard rocks.
It was happy water, dancing and singing,
It was generous water
Serving fish and fly and flotsam –
Green shoot and tired twig
And half-grown berry.
3.
But not all the water rushed.
Some eddied pointlessly
Against a rusty sluice-gate
Where it stood
Burdened with its various corpses.
Or so it seemed.
Underneath it made its eager exit
And bubbled mirthfully up again
To meet the welcoming sun.
4.
And I saw a tiny trickle
Seeping from the sodden bank –
A mere piddle.
Of what use to such a hurtling stream
Was such a petty dribble?
Why, another small note
Adding to the chaotic chorus
Of the stream.
And one hard rock was heart-shaped.
Laved by the loving torrent.
And God was in the water,
And God was in the hard rock.
Ciarán MacCormaic, CFC,
Glencomeragh, 26.5.99
And here are (blurry) photos of the board
Séamus Sweeney 