Patrick Hammer Jr.

Journey To Cape Clear

     I hope we’re a nice old couple living off
               the coast of Ireland… JL

Journeying off the south coast of Cork
on a small rocking ferry to the island
of Cape Clear, I can see now why
John Lennon would pick here to retire
with his scrapbooks of memories,
can see why Yoko sang of this place,
losing her teddy bear, living in pools
of now and again light, as we do now.

I’m with my cousins, Kevin and John,
in a kind of walking meditation
after we dock. Curious inlanders
drive downhill, leave in reverse, to see
who would come to Cape Clear
off season in October. We play

Lennon’s ‘Starting Over’, Yoko’s
‘Cape Clear’ on YouTube to mark
the occasion of our visit. We’ve come
to Cape Clear and what did we see:
a cove, a lone canteen for sandwiches
and soup. But closed: two pubs,
a gift shop, a chipper, a library housed
in a trailer, a tourist office too.

No choice but to wander the island
uphill to where the land is thinnest.
There we see both sides of Cape Clear,
the village in the valley that these
two points, falling, created. We see
so many flies, ferns, the ocean,
a ruined church among old graves.

We can see why John and Yoko
would be quite happy here in the silence
of nature’s rule—if things had been
different. If…


Crestfallen

Some lone older brother or uncle died,
or couldn’t upkeep the land and house,
and now is gone. This dwelling
in distress: the roof is balding,
an outer wall is crumbling. Garish
paint now peeling like skin from bone
outside. Panes of glass coming loose,
falling out like rotten teeth. The path
to the rotting front door overcome
with ferns and hardy weeds.

Here along this rural road in Limerick
we live next door. The eyesore no bother
to us. Used to it, we take no notice,
inside our modern, custom-built bungalow.
Our own windows intact, look out
onto a trim, lush lawn. Nature will
someday conquer the ruin on some
wild, dark, rain-soaked, windy night.
Unless some distant cousin claims
the crestfallen. No bother to us.
We take no notice.



               The land does not forget…
               Place is a doorway through which
               one steps across time.
                               —Kate Morton

Allaghan View

I visit the Irish homestead
in Tournafulla, West Limerick,
now sold to a new owner.

The last of my Doody family
to live here has passed away.
But they are not gone at all.

I see Darby at his meager tea
as he and villagers build
his ‘Allaghan View’. It’s 1845.

He’s 18. Left Kerry, left Shanagolden,
kept his horses, and came here.
The land knows all this.

I see his children in this crowded house.
Some sons leave for Chicago in the 1880s.
I see my own grandmother, his granddaughter.

I see her brother inherit the house. See
his children’s children visit from the U.K.
and Erie. He keeps the home fires burning.

The land remembers all this: the haggart
in the back, the long-gone rows of spuds,
the hen house, the back gate to Upper Tour.

I am sad the house fell out of Doody hands.
I rejoice, knowing the house and land will
always remember the Doody name.


About the Author

Patrick Hammer, Jr. lives in the Village of Saugerties. Along with Robert Langdon, he founded the Blue Stone Poets writing group and small press. He was a long-time participant on the North Jersey and NYC poetry circuit. His books: Bronx Local, Paramus Local, and Fort Lee Local are available from him at phammer82@yahoo.com. He is at work on Saugerties Local which will be available later in 2024. You can read on his Facebook page: Literary Memories of North Jersey & Area Remembered by Patrick Hammer, Jr..

(click here to close this window)