a Dingle epiphany - sometime in the eighties

a Dingle epiphany - sometime in the eighties

 

rich for a change

I set off on holiday

heading wherever the fancy took me

 

a poster in the coach station

“Holiday in Ireland”

caught my eye

I bought a ticket to Tralee

 

after the Guinness on the ferry

the final stretch, from Dublin to Kerry,

passed in a manner

best described ‘hazy’

 

fellow travellers

dissolved from the bus

melting down by-ways

of nondescript villages

promising to keep in touch

but never would

 

a parting is a little death

a warm-up for the 'lasting thing' -

empty words get used to ease

the ache of separation

 

as I drank sour tea

in a Tralee cafe,

I picked up a flyer

“Dingle Fleadh, grand craic, and not so far”

 

I got my thumb out

a farmer dropped me at a fork

waved his arm,

“Dingle, that way, sláinte.”

 

to the west where the sun

should have been setting

the sky had turned

a kind of rainbow golden blue

 

from somewhere in Kerry

or maybe beyond

a solemn voice intoned,

 

“IN THIS LIFE YOU WILL NEVER BE TRULY HAPPY”

 

I looked about,

nobody around -

the message was clearly

aimed at me

 

I was still hung over,

regretting rancid tea

and too much

Guinness on an empty stomach

 

‘never be happy’

‘never be happy’

 

a depth charge

exploding deep inside me

sent a lava flow -

hot shuddering sobs

spewing out from me

 

vehicles slowed to offer lifts

but picked up speed

at the sight of me  - 

 

no one wants floods of tears

from a demented hippy

damping their vinyl upholstery

 

a bus stopped at last

crammed with headscarf mothers

who crossed themselves

at the sight of me 

and looked the other way

 

I sat at the back beside a goat –

he nibbled my jacket

but a kick sent him back

to the seat he’d been chewing

 

Dingle was packed for the fleadh

standing room only in Devlin’s Bar -

except the table, where I sat solitary,

pickling in misery

 

as the fiddle band took a break

for a pee and a pint

Devlin’s went unearthly quiet

 

something took over me

I found myself on my feet,

singing, ‘sean nos’, a song

in a language unknown to me

 

I felt beyond joy - 

flooded with ecstasy -

what a memory!

 

I’ll sing that song again one day

though not this lifetime,

probably

 

a week of drunken days and nights

passed as in a dream

until liver problems and homesickness

finally caught up with me

 

I took a taxi to Tralee,

and tapped the driver’s arm

at the fork where 'the voice'

pulled my rug of life away,

 

“a moment please?”

 

the driver shook his head

as I harangued the empty sky

for its prophecy,

“IN THIS LIFE YOU WILL NEVER BE TRULY HAPPY”

banjaxing my life and my holiday,

 

Stevie Ray Vaughan's TexasFlood

full volume on a vintage  8-track

drowned my raging at the placid deity

the rest of the way into Tralee

 

on sober reflection

it occurs to me

that god was setting me free

from a lifetime spent grasping for

fleeting euphoria

 

but went about it somewhat enigmatically.

 

 

This is a true account of what I believe was an epiphany - 'god' spoke to me in a manner that shook me to the core, temporarily devastated me, and changed my outlook on life.

The original, of which this is an edited version, was nearly twice as long.