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From: "Jean R." <>
Subject: Dublin-born Mary DORCEY- "Uncharted Passage" (contemp.)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 17:00:45 -0700

UNCHARTED PASSAGE

You are the flagship -
gladly or not
we travel in your wake

So long as the masthead
bears your colours
we hold course.

Though you founder,
almost, in this
uncharted passage

Where storms and shallows
threaten alike. Though
we stand-to helpless

While half a lifetime's
cargo is jettisoned
and the flotsam

Of memory, the silks
and the bric-a-brace,
float out,

On an ebb tide. Yet,
so long as you endure
we are young.

So long as you hoard
a remnant of self
above water,

A frail bulwark
survives.
In late middle-age

We remain, all
of us - somebody's
children still.

-- Mary Dorcey, short-story writer, poet, novelist from Co. Dublin, has lived in the U.S., England, France, Spain and Japan, presently Research Associate, Trinity College Dublin. 'Uncharted Passage' from "Like Joy In Season, Like Sorrow," about relationships between aging parents and their children.

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• Dublin-born Mary DORCEY- "Uncharted Passage" (contemp.) by "Jean R." <>