To know justice in my name
I grew out of the taste in the sand
In a place film recommends
As the wildest in the western world
The ocean is a fear for those whose feelings fail
To acknowledge the beginnings of fire in the soul
But I watched white birds cover colors and crests
While the mystic sense of the sea's,
hovering creation, hurt then healed
For my small hand seized thoughts attended by the wind,
when reguarding purpose rather than a yearning distance
Long before I was born to dance my way out of walking,
even computers began to contrive my father as nomadic
(Perhaps seeing with the same four seasons
only desperate women and weak men
was too painful under his sun)
Yet I wanted a strong dad
So I could kick his shins
And poke his eyes out too
(How smart is societys' voice,
Like in a chant
when living infinity isn't a choice)
Sometime after speech made paragraphs,
out of give, get, gallant, and gain;
I saw signs that to find and to mean, and to yield unity,
survives lost at sea or about the personage of the stars,
come to Earth's soil as deliberate human life.
I did see life stay up to unchanging remains of passion
And yes go down to the vast waters of individual tears
I later understood indications that suggested my father
might have for a moment been as smart as a dog in danger
And when I saw other men guarding with their offspring,
I noticed a family where power had not become a stranger
Still he did not turn objective like a detective on television
Or take seriously American cities fighting with sportsfigures
As I would not listen attentively to religion dropping names
For every word of it was dumb in daylight or darkness
Put against what the deep mind can find in its dreams
Finally talent determined a structure for being left half alone
And apart from spells that spun his thoughts backward in action,
at least my art would allow a father who had never been my home
And if comprehending music is anything like embracing reason,
then tuning loose strings as a start toward true sound,
is like tying life's uncompromising facts
into a story that works
(Yet we will be more than the wisdom of certain birds,
that recognize the motives of humans when they are watched)
Simply with the birth that drives through the earth;
the knowing of youth
And now may all sweet song gather my grasp on worldly wings
Held by my mother's gift of the ancient Gaelic,
given in quiet, to guide my temperment in my time
Through what is creative in the history of my life
Which first is to love Siobhan,
and then to let her smile at her consequence.