I almost made some unforgivable mistake— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
with Rose and my children.
Almost cut us loose from each other
to drift until the ends of our lives
and not know
what we could have been to and for each other.
When I see the hand of God move
I’m never sure which side or why
and the closer passes the stroke
the less anything
resembles what went before.
gallagher
1/20/86
Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
1986-01-20
Monday, January 20th, 19861986-06-28 1
Saturday, June 28th, 19861— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
His face beside me in this moment here
the best of all we’ve done
down through the years… to Jackson Browne’s song – “In the Shape of a Heart”
his face beside me in the moonlight as i’m lying here
the moon and the water’s rush
a midnight ivory cheer.
i look at him and i see our lives
i look at him and i see all we tried.
everything we were and tried to be
is lying here beside me.
2
everything, and all we were,
all the love and all the tears
is lying here beneath the moon
riding with me thru a distant june
i remember your brow and hands
your eyes in love and all your plans.
i remember you at nineteen
and all the heartaches since then we’ve seen.
and in this frozen moment of time
this child of six is yours and mine
and my eyes well with every line
that he’s the best from all our time.
this child of love, half you and i
is all that’s left of what we tried
everything that we were
is lying here with your skin and hair.
i’m not wanting to go back to what it was we tried
but here with chris i can feel the silent running tide
of what we were and how it died
of how we loved and how we lied
3
i’m rambling here against the moon
in this distant year, this distant june
chris beside me, fast asleep.
i can see his face against the moonlite summer night
and find that all the love we were is lying here
vectored down through all the years
the love and pain, the joy and tears.
your face at nineteen and at thirty-six
my memories run and mix
that love and life are made of this
we gave our lives for love, and chris.
4
God, release my hand and heart to speak
the thoughts i have so fill my heart
i want to say them clearly, let them part
chris beside me, moonlight and water’s rush
his face in ivory, made of rose and i
it snaps me back through all the years
nineteen and starting, thirty-six and bitter tears.
every line that crossed her face
every dream that my lies debased
finds me here beneath the moon
on chris’ face, this distant june.
oh, rose, what can i say
that we tried for love, but were washed away…
and this boy is all that’s left.
5
i think it’s coming, what i want to say
that all the love i thought had washed away
is really here inside of him
that has you skin and your hair.
and that everything i mourn of us
is here at six, our love in trust.
and if we part to never mend
this boy is ‘us’, our love won’t end.
my tears have found me as i look on him
and memories run of all we’ve been.
6
rose, i wonder if you’ll ever know
that i cried for you and i tonight
for our lives and our love and all our time.
for all your dreams and all my lies.
i looked at chris
and photographed there
was the best of us, in his skin and hair.
i don’t want to go back
but i mourn that we poured so much of ourselves
into our lives and that living beat us down.
i remember seeing the lines cross our faces
love and pain and the aging’s trails.
dreams and love and skin and time
houses and poems and friends and wine.
chris is lying here, six years old
and, save for him, some flame’s gone cold.
i don’t understand, perhaps i never will,
how love and pain are both God’s will.
gallagher
28 jun 86
Irvine
2023-10-25 – Ancestry
Monday, September 25th, 2023An hour can be so long.
And even a minute.
And yet the years stretch behind us,
gathering.
And here they lie before me
with all their days and hours; each lived.
Their births, marriages, children and deaths
one after the other; again and again.
I find myself pulled through time
to the coal fields of Eastern Pennsylvania
and the farms and dirt roads
where they all lived.
Rising and falling,
naming their children and passing their years.
And each with a life
as rich and full of feeling as mine.
I slot them here, one after the other, in their lives; come and gone
and nothing is left of them – save for a few photocopies
of old hand-written ledgers and some grainy photos
of faces who never saw a telephone or a light bulb.
And yet, in these pictures,
their eyes shine bright
with the light of a day, now forever gone,
but so clear and real to them … then.
And even after all this sifting through their lives
and dwelling on their passings,
my own mortality still, somehow,
remains, to me, just a possibility.
Gallagher
25Sep23
Christchurch