The Bell Ringer

He came among us first at Christmas

when, as a young boy , I heard him climb

the creaking stairs to ring the heavy bell.

His back bent low beneath the knotted rope,

he would ring out forever

over the stubble fields,

across numberless townlands,

to the tiny houses flickering in moon-thickets

against the northern sky.

He rang loud,

he rang long,

almost forever so I thought,

and then in the silence he was gone,

lost in the crowded lamp-lit Church,

in the dying embers of the lingering bell.

And I would listen to the silence he had made,

for he and the wind and the bell were one.

Sometimes the wind would blow the sound

across the land, and it was heard loud

where it was never heard at all.

He and the bell were one, bound

together by the knotted rope

he held in his worn hands.

The rope would wrench his arms and chest,

his head bent low beneath his work,

he belonged to the bell,

and the bell belonged to the wind,

and he and the wind and the bell were one,

bound together by the knotted rope

that did not sing but spoke

of his pain in the dumb silence

that swung across the air

when he had gone,

descending the stair.

And all that I knew was the bell-ringer,

and he and the bell were one.

But this was so long ago,

so long that sometimes I hear

the bell resound within me,

knowing it loud and true

and off by heart

in still days of wonder.

 - Cathal Lagan