They came

from out of nowhere

this morning,

before I rose,

half alseep,

for some reason,

hazy memories

of my sixteen-year-old

or thereabouts self

swam through

my sleep-slow mind

and suddenly,

focused on his face,

I remembered

his wiry hair,

clear as a bell,

I remembered his face,

his angry, waspish

bespectacled face.

 

I hadn’t properly understood

that “Man of the Cloth’s” instructions:

that “Man of God”, my teacher,

my spiritual guide,

what with French being

his mother tongue,

and English being mine:

my mother and father

were back there, in Blighty.

Hammer and chisel in hand,

we had been preparing

the old, plastered, convent wall

for some renovation or other.

I, having chiselled

at the wrong part,

remember an angry

“plus bas, plus bas!”,

“lower, lower”!,

or some such words,

then a wallop across

the back of my head,

which I remember

as if it were yesterday.

 

I dread to think

what my instincts

might have been,

if, fifteen years later,

this builder’s labourer,

with hammer and chisel in hand,

had turned around

to face his abuser.

I remember it well

as clear as the convent bell.

I remember it well.

“Message received and understood.

Thank you, Lord".

 

Le Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh,

Dé Máirt, an naoú lá de mhí Mheán Fómhair,

dhá mhíle agus cúig is fiche (Tuesday 9th September 2025)