The Heelers Diaries

the fantasy world of ireland's greatest living poet

My Photo
Name:
Location: Kilcullen (Phone 087 7790766), County Kildare, Ireland

Friday, August 21, 2009

the chain of gold

Night time at the Chateau de Healy.
The noble Heelers is reclining on his bed.
The mother's gold chain is on a table beside my bed.
The delicate paper thin links are hopelessly tangled.
I'd spent an hour trying to fix it yesterday.
It had been tangled up in another trinket, a bracelet.
With the mother's permission, I'd cut the bracelet to ribbons, in order to free the chain.
Even with the bracelet gone, the chain itself still proved impossible to unravel. It seemed knotted in upon itself. To straighten it, I'd have to risk breaking it too.
In the end I promised her I'd bring it to a jewellers.
I see it now on the table beside my bed.
An impulse comes to me.
Work on the chain while kneeling in front of the image of our lady of Guadalupe.
The image is in a corner of my room.
I take the chain and kneel.
I begin to run the links between my fingers.
There is only one light, a bedside lamp, in my room.
It is hard to see what I'm doing.
I pray the fifth glorious mystery of the rosary, the crowning of our lady as queen of heaven, as I run the links between my fingers.
This prayer involves reciting an Our Father and ten Hail Marys while meditating on the mystery.
At the fifth hail Mary, the chain untangles in my hand.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home