The Little King of Williamsburg
New York used to be the apple of my eye. I wasn’t sure if I should ever return. I was enchanted and at home in Brooklyn. And upstate New York in the forests with Chipmonks and crickets and the round wooden house in the woods.
This poem is for Rian, my godson, in New York. It was written for his baptism by the sea, by the wonderful renegade priest Fr. Tom Hamill. It was altogether a magical day in Schull, County Cork. It was the last time my parents were away together. I only have a photo of them in the howling wind that day by the Dolmen with Fr. Tom waving his arms over Rian.
I have no other photos. But this was Rian’s day. The Little King of Williamsburg.
A prayer in Bangkok
For a little soul
And then, walking over the mountains
To a hidden land-
Was the temple of the Black Hats,
And the lama
Laughing over tea,
Who knew,
As the snows melted,
As the water boiled,
That there was a soul
In her belly
Who went back down
The mountain,
Back to Brooklyn
In her belly
To the boiling August streets
Where nasturtiums wilted,
Trash cans scorched
The hands off bums.
Rian-
Little King of Williamsburg,
Born like a lotus out of the mud.
The One who sings a quiet song
When they sleep,
And shows us
That we don’t need to be
So loud to be heard,
We don’t need to run
A thousand million miles.
We can just sit,
And a world of temples,
And the mountains
Come to our royal little feet.
© Siofra O’Donovan
Schull, August 2008
Gorgeous one of my favorite song lyrics is “Lotus flowers still bloom brilliantly out of mud”
Oh gosh I would have been that priest in a former life no doubt. Good for him. Also thanks for taking me back Torrey Brooklyn I love from the 80's. How I miss those autumn days and cold winter nights....... the market,the botanical gardens, Prospect Park.