IRISH-AMERICAN-L Archives

From: "Jean Rice" <>
Subject: [Irish-American] "Theresa's Friends" - Robert CREELEY (Contemp.)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 20:06:23 -0700

THERESA'S FRIENDS

>From the outset charmed
by the soft, quick speech
of those men and women,
Theresa's friends -- and the church

she went to, the "other,"
not the white plain Baptist
I tried to learn God in.
Or, later, in Boston the legend

of "being Irish," the lore, the magic,
the violence, the comfortable
or uncomfortable drunkenness.
But most, that endlessly present talking,

as Mr. Connealy's, the ironmonger,
sat so patient in Cronin's Bar,
and told me sad, emotional stories
with the quiet air of an elder

does talk to a younger man.
Then, when at last I was twenty-one,
my mother finally told me
indeed the name Creeley was Irish --

and the heavens opened, birds sang,
and the trees and the ladies spoke
with wondrous voices. The power of the glory
of poetry -- was at last mine.

-- Robert Creeley, "Later" (1979)

This thread:

• [Irish-American] "Theresa's Friends" - Robert CREELEY (Contemp.) by "Jean Rice" <>