With my Mother in St. Brendan¹s Cemetery,
Green Isle, Minnesota

Two years ago 
the steeple toppled but now,
like a windfall apple
put back on the tree,
it¹s been restored.

Partly to see it,
I¹ve brought her home
to this church named
for the Kerryman who sailed west
into the ice. 

It¹s cool for May.
She wraps a black sweater
around her, against the
chilling gusts. The sky is sunless,
grey as wet chalk.

We¹ve brought begonias
for my grandparents' graves,
We place them with care,
offer short prayers,
cross ourselves,

and then head back,
stepping over tea-brown puddles,
down well platted lanes
of granite. She reads them
like a childhood map;

today, these names,
none of whom I knew in the flesh,
prompt her to release
old secrets. She easily taps
a long-locked vein:

"This man: married 
and had a family when he got
a poor farm girl pregnant,
out in the country.
She gave the baby up

"Oh, Mother told me about
this one: he lived here for years,
and never mentioned a wife
until she and four children
arrived on the train 

"And over here  Maurice.
You know him; Eileen¹s husband.
They had get married, of course.
It worked out in the end, or so
you have to hope."

Then a rush of wind
threatens a word-drowning rain,
and my mother withdraws
from her uncharted stories,
bottles them up

for fear of that rain,
falling in silent sheets,
rain that could have blown here
from Ireland. We¹ve just felt
the first drop.