A Protestant Gaelgor, Loch Anure, 1965

Donegal Gaeltacht days of memory
& that six o'clock presumptuous scene:
All other pre-pubescent scholars
knelt in male-clumsy choreography.
They uttered rote religious phrases reluctantly;
Such supplications had never previously
graced these innocent Protestant ears.
(were these “decades” piously uttered “as Gaeilge”?)
The “ban a tighe” set the irreverent pace,
hastily threading her crucifix adorned necklace
through work-worn fingers.

Over the fireplace an Aryan-like Jesus
exposed a symbolic bleeding heart
casually & apparently painlessly.
Ignorant of this religious ritual,
my face reddened challenging the votive light
that spookily illuminating Jesus' beatific face.
Dumbstruck this unwitting “separated” soul,
a caste apart, a pitied Prod:
misplaced among cradle Catholics.

I inhaled the incense of turf scented air,
wishing an end to this embarrassement.
Like any other awkward Irish Protestant,
I kept my unblessed head down,
until the faithful finished.

What after-Mass fun & games were missed
behind the sentinel-like hand-ball alleys?
My two brothers & I bounced along bog roads
sitting silently on the shiny,
red back seat of a Ford Anglia.
Were we being reluctantly chauffered,
to the dreary solemn service in distant Dungloe?

Handel’s Hallelujah

Your fat face was framed by a pompous

Powdered white curled wig.

Your poised pose camouflauged much pain:

the rejection of many friends in London.

You were bone-weary, most hopes dashed;

Self-impoverished by spontaneous, outrageous charity.

Carping critics, those primal dogs, snarling

And baring their saliva-glazed teeth,

surrounded you with their merciless mockery;

You, a wounded noble highland stag.

You were aggressively attacked by your soul’s shepherds:

Prelates & priests condemned the sanctifying of the stage

but you sang God’s eternal hope in those immoral theatres.

You, like the once-shorn, once-emasculated Samson

Would soon pull down those self-vaunted pillars;

“O superficial society, your souls starved of the good & true,

Your devilish drunken laughter has a hollow, echoing ring.

How you have missed Christ’s clues in this oratorio!”

You abandoned society’s salons & soirees

And retreated into your room, refusing

Friends & food, thirsting after righteousness.

Did you lie worshipping, winded, prone on the floor

Of your self-imposed, solitary confinement?

Empty, exhausted at the composition’s conclusion,

You created an orchestral awe, numerous choral angels vying

To convey your majestic vision of the New Jerusalem,

Expertly aimed at cracking our hardened hearts;

Such heart-rending meticulous melodies, finely woven

On a loom of wonder, framed by the eternal Word.

Handel, you had survived many miserable failures.

You strived for the Pauline-implored, Olympian prize,

the race-winning, noble crowned wreath.

Primed with pent-up, holy passion,

Your aural architecture, was carefully crafted

With deft, Germanic-engineered precision.

Such was a far cry from your patrician patrons

In the ivoried, marbled, cultured courts of Italy,

A world away from the pathetic pretensions

And cruel conformity of so-called fashionable society.

It was so fitting that your finished masterpiece

Freed over seven-score debtors from the

Humiliating privations of prison. Did they greet

You with palm branches & tears of wonder?

Your command performance set other captives free:

You released King George from the crushing confines

Of royal decorum. He was so moved on hearing

the Hallelujah Chorus that he rose from

his sumptuously cushioned, gilded theatre seat,

And acknowledged One of even higher rank:

The Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings.

Three centuries on, your special sacred

Composition lays kindly charitable, healing hands

On the sick & the poor, all made in His eternal image.