Hi

Fond greetings to those intrepid souls who have been checking out this diary regularly. I'm thinking particularly of: Xiao Lin from China who goes by the English name Valerie and is now managing a cafe in Dublin; Scrapper the Rover who is better known to internet scholars as Mr Joe Fagan from Boston; and Ewan McKenna who is PR chief for leading Irish Labour politician Jack Wall.
The following poem is dedicated to you, and to all good folks who have happened upon these pages, and indeed to any scoundrels who chance this way.

at midnight

forget the calls of woe and wealth
the wind is still
the ground rock hard
behold god's wonders darkness pluming breath
the fields the fens the ditches and the stars

bold traveller come to ireland in the wintertime
see the plough pitch and yaw across a jewelled sky
orion's goat wander back and forth
you'll say healy's was a trivial rhyme
but it brought me here
and i'm grateful just the same