I think when we have gathered the iron of his life
We will see that Gun Weasel the man was indeed a ruthless terrorist
It must have been when darkness fell that Gun Weasel shaped his life
No congregation just the occasion of a childhood never out of the pit
The grass would blow in the wind and ammunition would be polished
Gun Weasel the older of two brothers doors would fly open
The mirrors in the house Gun Weasel would package in black velvet
For Gun Weasel when he read a horror comic that comic bled
The shore and its tide both intellectual and martyr
All this on his one tattoo Gun Weasel’s lamp of the living dead
His faraway look at every funeral
Finely clad his rifle aimed in a direction just below the sun
Death can’t touch me he said
My release to the world is to make of you
That I blew you to bits to make noble martyrs of you
Urgency without apology my iron teeth check them out
My only rations are the rocks of the field
Everything points to it the solution
It’s the last bridge standing and we have to cross it
Behind and in front a nation is on the move
Not that it’s a simple matter moving from one place to another
The movement of a nation en masse is a class act
There are in it variations as complicated as the workings of a clock
Working parts that defy logic
Whole amounts that despite inevitability
Are afraid of that inevitability
No wonder it crosses the mind is the bridge strong enough to support us
In search of a fate when migration is on the move
A goose feather would be enough to overload a tired back
Even so migration shall be remembered
And the bridge when we finally put a foot on it
Be seen as a blessing never to know what the bridge spans
In the way that consequence has a beginning and an end
I can only hope this bridge has ears and eyes
People are crossing it and not one of them looking back
It’s hard to believe what a ten times murderer says at the best of times
But when he says let’s have a war without casualties or firing a shot
When he talks about the war wounded as the happiest of souls
Where there is no victory or defeat no dead soldiers coming home
It’s to applaud you that you remove the stone from your neighbour’s shoe
In anyone’s book ten murders is about as wicked as it gets
But going to war and not a soul killed
No displacement no people frightened into being frightened
A storm full in the face this time with a full stomach
How good it feels poking gun barrels into the mud
This is an army that never left home
Our murderer without accusation remains innocent
Ask yourself in the middle of a bomb raid
A man walks along with a monkey on his shoulder
What do you do in the circumstance
Do you trust him enough to follow him and his monkey
Do you swear by him to guide you safely through the bombing
In this man’s company given a bowl of soup and a bed for the night
Call it somewhere where all wars go home to
It’s no bad thing to practice your monkey talk
Those monkey eyes staring you through
In the wildest of moments
What is being served here has to be good
Winter the old woman said is this little twig that I am going to break over my knee
For what reason she says being old is the best reason
A violent act of course it is but it is done to let the sun come through
What an extraordinary thing the sun coming through best of all
Through a winter wood and the breaking of the last twig on earth
Everything about it is about the so-called dark side of the moon
Was it a thousand years ago the old woman had her palm read
And being read punched in the face the poor fortune teller
That he never read a palm again
Twigs and old women when you see them together expect a fire to be made
Where else is there to go to warm what goes on behind the eye
Put a place to it and a name and wander out in the snow in your slippers
Even if you don’t believe the impossible you too are making fractures
From this old woman’s lifeline hidden under her axe handle
There’s the suggestion that the twig you thought snapped is whole
And the winters deep into her knees with a little effort
Believe it or not total strangers are helping her to her feet
When I think of human tragedy on a scale
So overwhelming that it describes
Life insignificant to the event
When human cries go up and
Life sees itself dead and decaying in the sun
Its then that a charity comes to me
I can’t help thinking of the garden that survives
Birds are there and frogs in the grass
Flowers and bees they complement the scene
Because of fragility because of life here and not here
Never is the gate to this garden locked
Go through it and welcomes are everywhere
In this place when recovered tragedy uncovers its face
When the veil is lifted total recovery
Is a face as vulnerable and a body as weak as a new-born child’s
Moving there how many human hearts
Know also the blessing in that garden
The shade bringing us to who we are
Being in the garden and living the sun is also involved
What a reaction the accused condemned to death
And the accusers thinking it a good day’s work
What do they do they pass around a box of chocolates
In a steamy room chocolate is being licked from sticky fingers
In the mouth justice is being devoured
Hanging a man is like an exquisite soft centre a surprise
These are difficult times and quite properly
The time to be eating chocolates especially
When not wasted is our day of judgement
A decision to make us smile at our families
He who has tasted his last chocolate can be assured
After death he will still be passing them around
As for the condemned man let him taste your breath
The last chocolate if it is the last chocolate
I swear there’s not a man here will give it up for him
A good day then and sweetness all round
A man has been hung and an empty box of chocolates lies on the floor
Two homes and not a door to go through
Not one where you can burst into the room saying that you are sorry
Never should we ask to be remembered by this man
The man who has taken our light
So high up into the mountains
Why should we think of him on our behalf
That Lamentations touch him
Rather he was a rescue worker to bring
From a hopeless situation a child out alive
I see them now all the hands going up
The percentage we have of this man
It was in a gale and with
A very small light he
Climbed up into the mountains
A flicker you might have seen as a crazy act
More likely you saw that flicker go out
Yet because it was once there and lit
Even a spent light can be memorable
Not because of the dark
But because up a mountain and in a gale
A man saw fit to take it there
Standing in a circle is not going to stop the bombing
But if we catch each other in each other’s eyes
The circle we have made will overcome the night
A bombing raid is on the way and our circle is waiting to disarm it
Looking into each other’s eyes we know we can disarm it
In the net of our arms we know we can catch
The bombs and safely lower them to the ground
The bombs themselves come at us heads bowed
Their range is as close as a mother’s milk
It comes within our circle if the moment is our last moment
If one of us breaks down the others will release that person’s colours
Life in the flames can still be a home
In the room where it was thought no one could love
It puzzles us not at all this glimpse of the human list
If you can see it in your mind’s eye believe in it
That a circle of friends in proportion to all the world’s sad events
Has seen to it what amounts to the power of release
Without bowing a head but lifting a giant finger
Singing its important song the dove of peace
Is recovered and has never looked fitter
Ronald Rae
Hand-carved granite sculptures in public and private collections
