So softly in the summer night
Your fragile vessel has set sail,
Back through your Irish Infancy,
Bound for the Islands of the Blest.
We stand upon our adult shores
And through the curtain of our tears
Perceive at last, in all its grace,
Your loving presence in our lives.
Now comes the gathering of our years,
the harvest of our childhood days,
And in the barns of memory
We store the blessings
of your love.
For my brothers and sisters
In loving memory of our Mother 1903 – 1992
Je suis le jardinier
Roi de mes quelques ares,
L’accoucheur au seuil de la vie
Et nourrice aux petits aux faibles.
Je suis le portier fidèle
Au portail des saisons,
Le semeur aux bras longs
Le tuteur qui tient ferme et bon.
Je suis le porteur d’eau
Soulageant les assoiffés,
Mais aussi le bourreau,
L’envahisseur des microcosmes.
Je suis le bûcheron
Elarguant les branches stériles,
L’incendiaire des feuilles mortes,
Le fossoyeur des trépassés.
Je serai moi-même à la fin,
Le grain qui meurt et qui vit,
L’humus qui renouvelle la terre.
Mais, jusqu’à la tombée du fruit,
Je suis l’homme comblé
Humant l’odeur de ses roses,
Le Bon Dieu qui se promène
A la fraîcheur du soir.
And in and out among the flecks of foam
White sea-birds rose and fell upon the wind,
No different from the moving curves of spray
Until into the sky they rose and stayed
And joined the flocks which flew beside the ship,
All drawn along and upward in our wake.
Upon the starboard bow the distance broke
And there between the ocean and the sky
The land appeared, its highest peak concealed
By cloudy streamers, ribbons of the wind,
Its earthbase anchored in the purple depths
Among the corals and the waving weeds.
Our arrival in Seychelles by sea from Bombay,
After a journey of five days, July 1968
I have a homing instinct for the stars 
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