What Catches The Eye

Finally got it together to arrange a recording of the only work of mine that has been put to music. The poem is a cheerful little post-apocalyptic sonnet, titled 'When'. It was published in the Irish Times in the 1980s, then in my first collection in 2001. Here it is:

When

When the sky comes down to earth too soon
and we're woven into light's immaculate shroud;
when the black light seeding all our bad dreams blooms
in a spine of smoke bearing aloft the brain-cloud;

when one dies and in that breath millions more
are furnace-fanned to ashes that will blow
wherever the winds rage, a burned-out spore
settling, out of the fuming skies, like snow;

when all those seeking Heaven's draughty halls
find the conflagration had to spread,
that angels with singed wings have fled their stalls,
leaving behind the dead to count the dead,

clouds will roll back, a full moon mirror waste
and time do what it always does: erase.

The poem was chosen by a teacher, Br. Ben Hanlon, of De La Salle College Waterford, who was doing an MA in music at the time and wanted something to compliment a choral piece he was working on (to explore themes from Messiaen's 'Quartet For The End Of Time'). It was performed in 2008 in the post-graduate concert in the Waterford New Music Festival. Here's what the Munster Express said about it:

Ben Hanlon, for his When, based on a Mark Granier poem, brought a large De La Salle Boys Choir and a small orchestra under the baton of Niall Crowley. To a steady drum-beat, the large choir, all dressed in black, filed into the chapel and the music grew in dramatic momentum with tuba and trombones before the choir sang and whispered in powerful fashion. This was an inspirational and powerful piece with additional organ work also.'

My cousin Fiachra is a film-maker and he brought along a pro DVD camera and recording equipment. I had already fluffed a recording of this last year, using a digital mic I wasn't familiar with. This time I was determined to get it right. So hopefully we'll be able to put together a little film of the concert (the music is only 7 or 8 minutes).

I took the photo above while on my way to Cobh in South Cork (having given a lift to my cousin who was meeting his girlfriend in the vicinity). Odd what catches the eye, such as the ball jammed into the arrow-slit of this castle (whose name I didn't catch). The building was unusually intact and quite impressive, but this detail is what stood out for me. Auspicious hopefully (re the recording), a hole in one rather than an own goal.