Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

I am the Trump 1of the Graveyard. Let my voice be heard! It must be heard …

For I am every voice that was, that is and that will be. I was the first voice in the formlessness of the universe. I am the last voice that will be heard in the dust of Armageddon. I was the muffled voice of the first embryo in the first womb. When the golden harvest is stacked in the haggard, I am the voice that will summon home the last gleaner from the Grain-field of Time. For I am the first-born son of Time and Life, and steward of their household. I am reaper, stack-builder and thresher of Time. I am storeman, cellarer and turnkey of Life. Let my voice be heard! It must be heard …

There is neither time nor life in the Graveyard. There is neither brightness nor darkness. There is no sunset, springtide, changeability of wind or breaking of weather. Nor is there lengthening of the day, or manifestation of the Pleiads and the Plough; nor the growing creature attiring itself in the cloak of Joy and Festivity. The lively eyes of the child are not there. Nor the extravagant desire of the youth. Nor the rose-tinted cheeks of the maiden. Nor the gentle voice of the nurturing mother. Nor the serene smile of old age. Eyes, desire, cheek, voice and smile all dissolve into one amorphous sameness in the unsqueamish alembic of the earth. Complexion has no voice there, nor voice complexion, for the indifferent chemistry of the grave has neither voice nor complexion. It has only bones crumbling, flesh decaying, and body parts once vital decomposing. It has only the wardrobe of clay where the discarded suit of life rots under the moth …

But above ground a heat haze hangs lightly on the air. The springtide is pulsing constantly in the channels of the shore. The meadow is as if a can of green milk had been spilt on its grass. Hawthorn, bush and boundary hedge array their formal gowns like ladies-in-waiting before entering the presence of the King. There is a soft lonely ring to the blackbird’s song in the groves. The children’s eyes widen as they handle the toys tumbling from the treasure-chest of the virgin year. The torch that rejuvenates all hope glows in the cheek of the pubescent youth. Foxgloves plucked from the meadows of eternity bloom in the modest cheeks of the maiden. Whitethorn blossom foams in the tender countenance of the mother. The children play hide-and-seek in the haggard, their laughter ringing like chimes of joy, the pitches of their voices rising and falling as if trying to draw Jacob’s Ladder back down from Heaven. And the intimate whisper of courtship escapes from the seclusion of the boreen like a gentle breeze wafting over beds of cowslips in the land of youth …

But the old man’s trembling is chronic now. The young man’s bones are seizing up. The smear of grey washes over the gold in the woman’s hair. Cataract, like snake slime, is quenching the child’s eyesight. Gaiety and gambolling give way to grumbling and groaning. Weakness is driving out strength. Despair is overcoming love. The grave-cloth is being stitched to the cradle-cloth, and the grave to the cradle. Life is paying its dues to death …

I am the Trump of the Graveyard. Let my voice be heard! It must be heard! …

2

— … Hey! What’s that? Who are you? Are you my son’s wife? Wasn’t I right when I said she’d be here on her next childbirth …

— Seáinín Liam is what they used to call me in the last place, indeed — unless I have to be christened again here. The heart …

— Seáinín Liam. Ababúna! They’re burying you in the wrong grave, Seáinín. This is Caitríona Pháidín’s grave …

— Arrah, isn’t that always the way in this cemetery, Caitríona my dear? But I can’t speak to a living soul. I have more to worry me. The heart …

— What sort of funeral did I have, Seáinín Liam?

— Funeral? The heart, Caitríona! The heart! I had just been to collect the pension. Devil a thing I felt. I drank a drop of tea. Down I went to the Common Field to fetch a creel of potatoes. When I was easing it off me inside the house, the strap handle slipped and the creel came down lopsided. I gave my side a little wrench. There wasn’t a puff of breath left in me …

— What sort of funeral did I have, I’m asking you?

— The heart, God help us! The heart is a serious matter, Caitríona. A weak heart …

— To hell with your heart! You’ll have to give up that nonsense here …

— Bedamn but the heart’s a poor thing, Caitríona. We were building a new stable for the colt we bought after Christmas. We had it finished except for the roof. I wasn’t able to give the young fellow much help, but little and all as it was he’ll miss me. I wouldn’t mind but the weather was great for a long time now …

— Weather! Time! Those are two things that won’t worry you here, Seáinín. You were a dimwit all your life. Tell me this much! Why don’t you pay attention to me? Did I have a big funeral?

— A fine big funeral!

— A big funeral, you say, Seáinín …

— A fine big funeral. The heart …

— May the devil and all his demons take that same heart of yours, if it’s such a treasure! Do you hear me? You’ll have to quit that blathering. They won’t listen to that sort of talk here, I’m telling you. How much altar-money was collected at my funeral?

— A fine big funeral …

— I know, but how much altar-money? …

— A fine big collection …

— How much, I ask you? You always were a dimwit. How much altar-money?

— Peadar the Pub had a big collection, and so had Siúán the Shop and Muraed Phroinsiais and Cite …

— Don’t I know that! But that’s not what I’m asking you. Wasn’t I above ground myself then? But how much was collected at my own funeral, Caitríona Pháidín’s funeral. Altar-money. Seventeen pounds, sixteen pounds, fourteen pounds? …

— Ten pounds, twelve shillings.

— Ten pounds! Ten pounds! Now, Seáinín, are you sure it was ten pounds, not eleven pounds or twelve pounds, or …

— Ten pounds, Caitríona! Ten pounds! A fine big collection, indeed. No word of a lie to say it was a fine big collection. Everybody said so. I was talking to your sister Nell: “Caitríona had a fine big collection,” she said. “I thought she wouldn’t come within two or three pounds of it, or four indeed.” The heart …

— Blast and damn your heart! Now Seáinín, stop that nonsense for God’s sake! … The Mountain crowd weren’t there?

— She said that, faith: “I thought she wouldn’t come within two or three …”

— The Mountain crowd! They didn’t hear about it. Pádraig was going to send them word: “Arrah,” says Nell. “Why would you be dragging the creatures down, walking all that distance.” That’s what she said. The heart. A weak heart …

— I wish to God your heart was a lump of poison stuck in the pit of Nell’s stomach! The Glen of the Pasture people weren’t there? …

— Not a sight of them.

— The Wood of the Lake people?

— That cousin of Siúán the Shop in Wood of the Lake was being brought to the church the same day … I wouldn’t mind but the weather was great for a long time now, while we were working on the stable …

— Sweet-talking Stiofán wasn’t there, of course? …

— A colt we bought after Christmas …

— For the love of God, Seáinín, don’t let the whole graveyard know you’re so stupid! … Was Sweet-talking Stiofán there?

— Not a bit of him, but Pádraig told me he was talking to him last fairday and what he said was: “I assure you, Pádraig Ó Loideáin,” says he, “If it cost me my life’s blood I’d have been at the funeral. I owed it to Caitríona Pháidín …”

—“to come to her funeral even if it was on my two knees. But devil a word I heard about it till the evening she was buried. A youngster belonging to …” A right blatherer, that same Sweet-talking Stiofán! … What sort of coffin did they put me in?