Mike McCormack - Solar Bones

for Maeve

the bell

the bell as

hearing the bell as

hearing the bell as standing here

the bell being heard standing here

hearing it ring out through the grey light of this

morning, noon or night

god knows

this grey day standing here and

listening to this bell in the middle of the day, the middle of the day bell, the Angelus bell in the middle of the day, ringing out through the grey light to

here

standing in the kitchen

hearing this bell

snag my heart and

draw the whole world into

being here

pale and breathless after coming a long way to stand in this kitchen

confused

no doubt about that

but hearing the bell from the village church a mile away as the crow flies, across the street from the garda station, beneath the giant sycamore trees which tower over it and in which a colony of rooks have made their nests, so many and so noisy that sometimes in spring when they are nesting their clamour fills the church and

exhausted now, so quickly

that sprint to the church and the bell

yes, they are the real thing

the real bells

not a transmission or a broadcast because

there’s no mistaking the fuller depth and resonance of the sound carried towards me across the length and breadth of this day and which, even at this distance reverberates in my chest

a systolic thump from the other side of this parish, which lies on the edge of this known world with Sheeffry and Mweelrea to the south and the open expanse of Clew Bay to the north

the Angelus bell

ringing out over its villages and townlands, over the fields and hills and bogs in between, six chimes of three across a minute and a half, a summons struck on the lip of the void which gathers this parish together through all its primary and secondary roads with

all its schools and football pitches

all its bridges and graveyards

all its shops and pubs

the builder’s yard and health clinic

the community centre

the water treatment plant and

the handball alley

the made world with

all the focal points around which a parish like this gathers itself as surely as

the world itself did at the beginning of time, through

mountains, rivers and lakes

when it gathered in these parts around the Bunowen river which rises in the Lachta hills and flows north towards the sea, carving out that floodplain to which all roads, primary and secondary, following the contours of the landscape, make their way and in the middle of which stands

the village of Louisburgh

from which the Angelus bell is ringing, drawing up the world again

mountains, rivers and lakes

acres, roods and perches

animal, mineral, vegetable

covenant, cross and crown

the given world with

all its history to brace myself while

standing here in the kitchen

of this house

I’ve lived in for nearly twenty-five years and raised a family, this house outside the village of Louisburgh in the county of Mayo on the west coast of Ireland, the village in which I can trace my seed and breed back to a time when it was nothing more than a ramshackle river crossing of a few smoky homesteads clustered around a forge and a log bridge, a sod-and-stone hamlet not yet gathered to a proper plan nor licensed to hold a fair, my line traceable to the gloomy prehistory in which a tenacious clan of farmers and fishermen kept their grip on a small patch of land

through hail and gale

hell and high water

men with bellies and short tempers, half of whom went to their graves with pains in their chests before they were sixty, good singers many of them, all

adding to the home place down the generations till it swelled to twenty acres, grazing and tillage, with access to open commonage on Carramore hill which overlooks the bay and

this pain, this fucking pain tells me that

to the best of my knowledge

knowledge being the best of me, that

that

there is something strange about all this, some twitchy energy in the ether which has affected me from the moment those bells began to toll, something flitting through me, a giddiness drawing me

through the house

door by door

room by room

up and down the hall

like a mad thing

bedrooms, bathroom, sitting room and

back again to the kitchen where

Christ

such a frantic burst

Christ

not so much a frantic burst as a rolling crease in the light, flow- ing from room to room only to find

this house is empty

not a soul anywhere

because this is a weekday and my family are gone

all gone

the kids all away now and of course Mairead is at work and won’t be back till after four so the house is mine till then, something that should gladden me as normally I would only be too happy to potter around on my own here, doing nothing, listening to the radio or reading the paper, but now the idea makes me uneasy, with four hours stretching ahead of me till she returns,

alone here for four hours

four hours till she returns so

there must be some way of filling the span of time that now spreads out ahead of me, something to cut through this gnawing unease because

the paper

yes

that’s what I’ll do

the daily paper

get the keys of the car and drive into the village to get the paper, park on the square in front of the chemist and then stand on the street and

this is what I will do

stand there for as long as it takes for someone to come along and speak to me, someone to say

hello

hello

or until someone salutes me in one way or another, waves to me or calls my name, because even though this street is a street like any other it is different in one crucial aspect — this particular street is mine, mine in the sense of having walked it thousands of times

man and boy

winter and summer

hail, rain and shine so that

all its doors and shop-fronts are familiar to me, every pole and kerbstone along its length recognisable to me

this street a given

this street is something to rely on

fount and ground

one of those places where someone will pass who can say of me

yes, I know this man

or more specifically

yes, I know this man and I know his sister Eithne and I knew his mother and father before him and all belonging to him

or more intimately

of course I know him — Marcus Conway — he lives across the fields from me, I can see his house from the back door

or more adamantly

why wouldn’t I know him, Marcus Conway the engineer, I went to school with him and played football with him — we wore the black and gold together

or more impatiently

I should know him, his son and daughter went to school with my own — we were on the school council together

or more irritably

of course I know him — I lent him a chainsaw to cut back that hawthorn hedge at the end of his road and

so on and so on

to infinity

amen

the basic creed in all its moods and declensions, the articles of faith which verify me and upon which I have built a life in this parish with all its work and rituals for the best part of five decades and

this short history of the world to brace myself with

standing here in this kitchen, in this grey light and wondering

why this sudden need to rehearse these self-evident truths should press so heavily upon me today, why this feeling that there are

thresholds to cross

things to be settled