Dom Marmion Bridge Poem by Bernard Kennedy

When you leave the shopping centre,
as if from this Rodeo Drive,
from the car park, awaiting a spot to exit,
left or right, you might see,
a reference, a hint, catch a glimpse,
of the marker on the bridge,
which tells that he walked, strolled,
from the church house, around this then boreen,
to Ballinteer, Dundrum village.
You may wonder who he was, what did he do.
In times bygone, this village yielded
prayer and fields, and daisy chains
by the river Slang, a mill of sterling
notes of quality, as Her Majesty passed over,
and butchers knew
the meat required and the day
of fast the fish-
the bookshop waited with
what could be a long read,
Mann, and Tolstoy, and
Soren Kirkegaard, and shoppers
waited, to get their goods,
then evenings to tend the echiums,
to the nearby sound of the stream,
for the river sound,
under the bridge, was a calling to boy fishers
from school at summertime.

He was to be a monk at Maredsous,
a Dublin Benedictine from the city,
in the quiet countryside.
and then into silence of prayer.

Here the tram and car drop shoppers in
to pray, into the new temple,
and register their obeisance
to fashion. Where the ring
of the till is the candle lighting,
and the twirl at the mirror,
the answered prayer.
Stop and think.
the mountain still looks down
upon the plaque-
Dom Marmion bridge.