Wicklow Lighthouse 3a.m.

Wicklow Lighthouse 3a.m.

“ ………. A deepening depression ….. heavy rain ……

………… poor visibility …… strong southerly winds ……

..............veering southwest.............................

………… building strong gale after midnight ………….. ”




Shine, steady light,
and bring them home
to Wicklow

Dear God, look out for Jim
and all the lads aboard the Sarah Ann,
struggling home against the wind
beyond the Arklow Sands

Shine steady, light,
and bring them home
to Wicklow

And all for what? Less
fish than ever, every time,
a box of crabs, a living? A
hundred hooks, a life, all on the line.

Shine strong now, light,
shine strong all night
and bring them home
to Wicklow

Your daughter Sarah, soon, I hope
will have a brother.
And they will need their Father
then, to love them, and their Mother.

Shine steady strong and surely
show their way
and bring them home
to Wicklow, safe, today.




“ ……….. reports are coming in …… fishing vessel …… no contact …

…………. sighted ….. approaching Wicklow harbour …………

…………. just after 3a.m. …………”




16 November 2005
Martin Swords

The Seven Birches

The Seven Birches




Seven Birches stand
On the right hand of the garden
Towering over house and sheep shed
Yet holding hands
Below the ground.
From Tiglin they came.
Picked and pulled as seven saplins
From the woods of Synge’s Glanmore.
Playboy, of the Western Woods.
Planted by Mervin, as he tells it
On a stormy day as dark as night.
When three storms, like three witches, met
And flashed and roared and spilled their spells of rain,
Macbethian, like three Weird Sisters, yet
Making beauty despite themselves
Not Birnan Wood, but Birchwood.
The Seven Birches still stand tall,
Now the sons of the seven show themselves,
Ready to make their stand
Whenever the witch’s storms return
To take the old and weak.
As they always do


Martin Swords Aug 2008

The Way of Kevin

The Way of Kevin




And then there was St. Kevin’s Way
The Way of Kevin, Tóchar Chaoimhín
In a Meditation Garden on a hill
below the chapel graveyard,
Suaimhneas Chaoimhín, the Tranquillity of Kevin
sings with the sound of water splashing.
A first Cuckoo calls on 4th of May
Tadpoles swim in the old stone
Baptism Font from Annamoe Church.


Are these Holy tadpoles in the Baptismal Font?
Or are they like the rest of us, struggling?
Is this their time, their place, their struggle?
Life is what’s Holy. Life is a struggle
whether in a Holy Water Font or
in the outstretched hand of a saint.
Struggle is the Prayer of Life.
Ask St. Kevin. Ask the Blackbird.
Ask the sons of the sons of the Blackbird.
Ask them the way.




Inspired by Seamus Heaney’s Poem
St Kevin and the Blackbird
And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird





Martin Swords
May 6th 2008

A Walk In The Woods With Robert Frost

A Walk In The Woods With Robert Frost






Overcast but warm,
The day dry, unusually.
Walking the woods with the dogs
As many times before.
Lucy and Tiggy, away in the rough dark deepwood,
Yipping with the scent of deer, excited.
Ruby, river scrambling, biting
At the bogwater, wagging her tail,
From the shoulders back



Along the old familiar track into
The clearing where the roads diverge.
I stopped and stood. Which way to go?
Think of another Poet, and roads not taken.
Yes, I’ve been here before. This way I came.
That way I saw a squirrel once.
And down that way a badger.
Straight on, the Mill Pond where ducks dabble.
Behind me then a stag, stares my way, and
Startled, slips into the wood.
I think again of Robert Frost and look a different way.
I stand a while. I turn, retrace my steps, recall, relive,
I’ll write this down, and this will be
The road I’ve taken.






Martin Swords June ‘07

A Tree Has Fallen

A Tree Has Fallen


i.m. Tommy Nolan 1940-2008


In a silent belfry
An old bell.
From the sea at Wicklow
A new rope.
In the graveyard
A new sound.
The Tolling Bell
Calls loud
To the quiet hush
Of the slow walk.
Ask not for whom,
It tolls for Tommy Nolan.

Back from the valley
Forest hills,
Derrybawn,
Lugduff, Camaderry,
Brockagh,
The toll returns,
The woodland wakes
A sturdy forester.
A tree has fallen,
Back to the earth.
Ring on Toll.
Echo Thanks.


Martin Swords August 2008