Niall Bradley

But I’m Missing Something

Once I saw a forest that kept
going and going
life to all sides
oceanic in size
as I moved trees syncopated and merged
like graves or grape vines

But now I know there’s always a road nearby

Now I see them at mass:
sunlight saddened by coloured glass
whispered echoes,
cave-wall damp
art wrought in human flesh
and violence: still and silent
incense sweet, but softened by weight
mourning a lack of faith
candles star-dotted on a wall heaven-high
a bell calls to the cavern of the sky
and I feel a cavity,
growing and growing
with an ocean yearning

Gentle Shore

A home is made of gentle things
its water still
clear evenings see what greyness masks
the spectral pinks and shadow dash of surface winds
like shoaling fish

Tell me,
is this a godly way?
Where day gives gentle way to day.
Then why this gnawing human drift?
Two thirds my life
to see in it a face of god
or settle heart and drift
from shore to gentle shore.

Niall Bradley is a software engineer living in Cork, Ireland.  His work has been published in Crannóg and the Galway Review.