Glen of Aherlow
POEMS
Betty Lynch will shortly be publishing her 1st book of poems.
Below is a sample of her poetry.___________________________
The Glen of Aherlow
I find you waiting there for me
Over the hill,
Your beauty unfolds everlastingly
Before my eyes.
In all this troubled world
I know
There is a place
To hide away
From cares and woes
And never ending blows
Of busy life and strife.
I look across your floor
Of patch-worked fields,
Your quiet river
Meandering at ease,
Your serried mountain peaks,
Clothed in purple, green and blue,
Soaring high into the sky ~
Sweet bird song fills my ears,
While gentle breezes fan my face
And wild flower scent intoxicates.
Weary I came,
I leave renewed,
My beautiful Glen of Aherlow.
Betty Kelly Lynch
___________________________
Betty presented a book of her African inspired poems to President McAleese during a visit to Aras an Uachtarain as part of the Concern delegation (40th anniversary of the charity). Below are some of the poems.
Concern in Darfur 2007
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ah, yet another year’s gone by
And here I am again,
Crying in the wilderness
For women, children, men ~
Displaced, abandoned, broken,
On the plains of bleak Darfur,
While the world stands by with eyes tight shut,
To the suffering of its poor.
But there are those who really care
And put their lives at risk,
To tend the needs and bind the wounds
Of the needy and the sick.
They brave the guns of soldiers
Who threaten, kill and rape,
While their Government stands idly by
And does nothing for their sake.
Oh yes, we could be cynical
And turn a cold blind eye,
But Irish people cannot watch
The innocent just die.
Each year you fill the empty cans,
As you go to Mass and pray,
You never turn away your head,
But give as best you may.
You help to feed, to educate,
You help relieve their pain,
Through your kindness, generosity,
Now we ask ~ Please, give again.
Thank you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Never to be Forgotten”
Valerie Place
~~~~~~~~
Man destroys man without hesitation,
What has gone wrong with God’s great creation?
A beautiful girl in the springtime of life,
Is shot in the heart for no reason, no strife.
Oh Mother distraught, unable to see
The reason, the purpose,
Why my daughter, why she?
God gave her to us
To love and to rear,
We nurtured we fed her
And left her go free ~
To tend and to love,
Those people in need
And then came this bandit
With a gun in his hand,
Who shot her for nothing,
I don’t understand.
O God in your heaven,
Can you not see ~
I’m angry I’m raging,
I’m seething with grief.
Tomorrow I know
I have to forgive ~
Those who destroyed her
And left me to live
Without my dear Valerie,
My daughter so true,
Today my dear Lord,
I give her to You.
~~~~~~~~~
(Valerie Place was a nurse working in Somalia with Concern.
She was shot by a bandit on 20th February, 1993).
~ DARFUR ~
A year’s gone by and still they live
In plastic shelters and hope you’ll give ~
A euro or two that they may live.
“Plumpy Nut” has brought a smile
To little ones, who now beguile
The cameramen from other isles.
Pain and grief are locked away
In Mothers’ hearts, who can’t display
Just how they feel, on any day.
Their day’s a struggle from morn till night
Gathering twigs, to set alight
A little fire to ease their plight.
But, in gathering twigs there’s no escape
If soldiers chose young girls to rape,
Then walk away and leave them hurt,
In dusty scrub among the dirt.
They dig and toil in dried out soil
To grow some crops ~ the hunger stop,
But locusts flies have them a-spied
And threaten now, to thus destroy
Their simple efforts to employ
And grow, a little nourishment.
Life is funny, I must say,
Hard to comprehend the play ~
Unfolding slowly day by day
In Darfur Camp, far, far away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Goma ~
~~~~~
Warm is this summer morning,
Beautiful, hazy, lazy,
Promising a lovely day,
As pigeons coo in their treetop nests,
The foliage is still,
There’s not a stir,
All’s peaceful in my place.
I look around and see,
Green fields, green trees,
As happily I walk into my garden
Face turned to the sky,
But there ~ reflected in my eye,
Is Goma,
Where man can only stand,
No room to sit, or lie,
There’s only room to die ~
Within this space,
Where refugees have fled,
In fear and dread,
Of being butchered in their homes.
Last night I watched the News,
Rwanda ~ the suffering ~
The crisis to beat all crises.
I am distraught.
I ask my daughter Ann,
To drive into the Glen of Aherlow.
We walk the little road behind the Statue of Christ the King,
It is a beauteous sight in evening light,
As summer haze sits silently
On mountain, hill and dale.
But in my mind’s eye just once more,
I see the Hutu Race
Crowd low beneath great Galteemore,
Herded in from Sliabh na mBan,
A moving mass of human flesh,
Starved, lost and famished ~
The weak ones lying,
Dying in the dust,
I see it in my valley.
These are my people too,
They are our neighbours and our friends,
Upon this sacred earth.
I weep today,
I kneel and pray ~
That humankind will find a way
To live in peace.
Amen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Gospel in Action ~
~~~~~~~~~
Each year as she walks to the table
And empties her purse of its all,
I thank this little old woman,
Now aged and humble and small.
She gives with a prayer and a blessing,
To the starving in lands far away
And promises then, to return once again
To a later Mass on that day.
She toddles along, just shaking her head
And mutters how blessed we all are,
Compared with plight of those people she’s seen ~
On the poster from Sudan afar.
Yes, later that day and true to her word,
She returns with the notes she’s put by ~
And quietly places them there in the can,
With a prayer and a tear in her eye.
I always think of Jesus’ words
When this woman gives her all ~
And prays “God bless those children,
Their Mothers, Fathers all.”
“The Rich Man gave from his surplus,
The Widow gave all she had,
Which was the greater gift?” He asked,
“The woman’s or the lad?”
~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Valerie Place ~
~~~~~~~~
Man destroys man
Without hesitation,
Oh what has gone wrong
With God’s great creation?
A beautiful girl
In the spring time of life,
Was shot in the heart
For no reason, no strife.
She was helping the hungry,
A nation in pain,
Then, shot by a bandit,
A creature insane.
Oh Mother distraught,
Unable to see
The reason, the purpose,
Why my daughter,
Why she?
God gave her to us,
To love and to rear,
We nurtured,
We fed her
And left her go free,
To tend and to love
Those people in need ~
And then came that bandit
With a gun in his hand,
Who shot her for nothing,
I don’t understand.
Sweet God in your heaven,
Can you not see?
I’m angry, I’m raging,
I’m seething with grief.
Tomorrow I know
I have to forgive
Those who destroyed her
And left me to live ~
Without my dear Valerie,
My daughter so true,
Today my dear Lord,
I give her to You.
~~~~~~~~~
Sudan 2004 ~ The Birth of Darfur
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eleven years ago we watched appalled
A nation of people starve to death.
There on our television screens
Beautiful, tall, gracious Sudanese men and women
Lay down on the roadside and died,
Their orphaned little children looked out at us
With large, brown, innocent eyes,
Festered and oozing,
While hungry bluebottles fed upon their sores.
A Newsreader would kindly announce:
“The following scenes which we are about to show
Are most distressing
And you may need to switch off your set or look away
How could I not watch?
These people are surely my brothers and sisters too.
How charming! How nice!
That my sensibilities were so considered!
“Who considers theirs?” I wonder.
Eleven years have passed away
And still these people suffer.
Their villages plundered, raised to the ground.
Their women raped,
Their crops all burned,
Their water poisoned,
Their children orphaned.
Abandoned and herded into camps,
Surrounded by hostile guards
Responsible for these atrocities,
They face starvation and certain death
Without our help.
How can we switch off dear Newsreader,
How can we just turn away
And hope to live another day in peace,
While we become ~ obese?
Sudan 1993
~~~~~~
My belly full, Miriam and Paul,
My feet and body Lie
Warm, Naked
I sit Dead
And watch the news. What can she do?
I’m shamed, What can I do?
For there I ask.
In front of me, I’m shocked ~
Displayed I shamed,
As clear as day, I am distraught
My fellow man, To think
My brother To see
And my sister, What’s happened
Lie ~ In the name
Black Of war.
And burned Blind, stupid men
And shrivelled Fight ~
On the floor For what?
Of a distant Ideals, principles,
Hut, Religion, greed?
An Irish girl ~ And all the time
A worker with Concern The people of the nation
Returns Bleed and starve
To see And die ~
Her charges, Such human wastage.