‘The Philosopher and the Birds’ By Richard Murphy

Leave some flowers at Rosroe for Richard Murphy RIP.  Irish Times 30/31 January 2018

In Memory of Wittgenstein at Rosroe A solitary invalid in a fuchsia garden Where time’s rain eroded the root since Eden, He became for a tenebrous epoch the stone. Here wisdom surrendered the don’s gown Choosing for Cambridge, two deck chairs, A kitchen table, undiluted sun. He clipped with February shears the dead Metaphysical foliage. Old, in fieldfares Fantasies rebelled though annihilated. He was haunted by gulls beyond omega shade, His nerve tormented by terrified knots In pin-feathered flesh. But all folly repeats Is worth one snared robin his fingers untied. He broke prisons, beginning with words, And at last tamed, by talking, wild birds. Through accident of place, now by belief I follow his love which bird-handled thoughts To grasp growth’s terror or death’s leaf. He last on this savage promontory shored His logical weapon. Genius stirred A soaring intolerance to teach a blackbird. So before alpha you may still hear sing In the leaf-dark dusk some descended young Who exalt the evening to a wordless song. His wisdom widens: he becomes worlds Where thoughts are wings. But at Rosroe hordes Of village cats have massacred his birds. (Wittgenstein’s seat is marked by a small plaque in the National Botanic Gardens and generally inhabited by a lazy ginger Tom). The area of Rosroe at Killary Harbour is discussed briefly in the blog under ‘The Brightest Jewel’. Rosroe is a wild and beautiful place, with a hostel (sited now where he had stayed briefly) adorned on it’s periphery by fuchsia hedges and looking onto the small harbour at Killary. from: Selected Poems by Richard Murphy.