Declan

Brother : Nunc et in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale

Fr Declan Deane, 14 May 1942 to 12 December 2010

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Brother

in memoriam Rev. Declan Deane, born Achill Island, Co Mayo, on 14
May 1942, died Pleasant Hill, California on 12 December 2010

After the funeral Mass, the concelebrating priests
filed out behind the casket, in white surplices
and black soutanes like a fleet of small boats

leaving harbour under sail; they gathered
in late-morning sunshine and sang –
while dark-suited men lifted you carefully

into the hearse – the Latin hymn of our exile:
Salve Regina, soft voices carried on the breeze
but all I saw was the dazzling flight of a humming-bird,

emerald with a breast of scarlet, at the higher branches
of a tree, dizzying, like an amen, like a reassurance
from the world; vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve. . .

*

Brother. Belovèd. I have been following. . .
On the way to school, remember, I
loitering; on the way home, scuffing
grasses by the roadside, or flinging stones

towards the high, unreachable gulls. Remember, evenings,
Bunnacurry, Achill Island, Co Mayo,
how we stood together at the grove’s edge,
stilled by the song of the blackbird, offering

reassurance, In the beginning. . . And follow still,
though I found you exhausted by that dread
and body-gnawing illness, and I felt shy of you,
as there we were, brothers, reaching out to one another

for comfort. Here, in Pleasant Hill, breezes touch the leaves
to the softest music, while soul so clings to body
it is a passionate love affair, and will not last.
On the Golden Strand, remember? playmates

we built our moats and castles, learned to swim
in the easy waves of Blacksod Bay, stood
on jagged rocks at ocean’s edge and watched out
over the vast uncertain, children, open, awed.

*

We sat, again together, in your room,
the small gatherings of a lifetime, photos, books,
in an ordered disarray; and spoke of death, of faith. . .

and you were famine-famished, broken; you spoke
the hymn you loved, your voice still firm
and I knew you had left me far behind,

struggling, now, beloved brother, for reassurance:
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide;

you tried the melody, but your voice broke:
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

*

God surrounds, the way the universe surrounds,
impels, as the universe impels – seasons,
fall and spring, cancer, volcano, song;
and there you were, too soon, almost prostrate

though I believe your Christ, eyes bright with gladness,
was visible to you, there, just out beyond
the Eucalyptus, your awkward, demanding, loved
Jesus, companion in the dread, the laughter.

Before Iliad and Odyssey, remember?
how big the meadows by the old house, how huge
the haycocks that we conquered, how powerful the weapons,
the wooden rake, the hayfork; speak to me now

how the world shrinks, how progress and neglect
make a wilderness, hiding the luscious honey-nests
of the distraught humble-bee, blotting out
two grinning boys, two innocents who stood

naked to the waist and red with sun. Now
I was walking with you round the parking lot,
Christ the King Parish, diocese of Oakland, California:
the cancer raddling you, slowing you to a soft-

shoe shuffle, you (this one time) following, but the Christ, too,
walked with us, offering you the grace of suffering
while I stumbled, bewildered still, incapable. Love
is a demanding fugue across our days, notes

of a rendered music building always
to a Totenlieder. You moved now, as Mary moved,
smitten by knowledge, setting out over the most
barren of landscapes, in expectation.

*

And here I am again, following, though most
unwilling. Schoolchildren line the road, the broad
Gregory Lane, Pleasant Hill, California, their hands

raised towards you in blessing and farewell. Tears in the eyes
of many children. Tears in mine. The quiet hearse
moves slowly, sunlight gleaming on its chrome, its polished

mirroring black. I in the next car. Following. Joanne,
Donie, Robin, with me, and I touched their hands,
seeking reassurance, the scent of eucalyptus

reaching in to us from outside. You and I,
Declan, children together once, remember? All of us
children, exules, filii Evae. Ad te clamamus. . .

*

I had rehearsed your dying, wondering at times
if this is dream or nightmare, everything coming apart
as cloud-wisps do, seen through the small window
of a plane, that fear when turbulence unsettles you,

and your fingers grip – in involuntary dread – the hard
seat-rests and you look for destination, the old
sense of belonging when you stride out boldly
towards arrival hall, reassured once more, on good ground.

And then we stood, sodden with our grieving, as you
went down, too young, out of the light, leaving us
to bear the impossible burden of your dying,
we, your faithful congregation, standing at the chasm,

nothing between me and the dark, now you are gone.
And Brian Joyce, speaking the prayers out loud,
sending a sprinkling of water, like love-tears, towards you,
a few red and golden roses dropped with you, as tokens

of our incapacity with words. Perhaps ours is the dream
of blackbird, singing out of dusk, offering us all
the coming-together again, for the last time, of the light
and night. Ad te clamamus, ad te clamamus.

A new poem by John F. Deane, written
between June 2010 and January 2011