Green Song in the Dark

By Niall Twohig

Intro

No quarter before, no time in life, has felt as magical as this. Life glows as it once did when I was a wee child. Every bush is a burning bush. Every stone a Blarney Stone. I see Brother Pine’s spirit, firm yet gentle. In Sister Crow’s caw, caw, caw I hear friend, friend, friend. I see thoughts floating above students, like angels, waiting to fall to earth, waiting to be spoken or written into being. Resting in the halo of a rainbow, I am enwombed again. Resting in a circle of students, I am enwombed again.

From where does the magic come?

Perhaps, in this great circle of life, middle age has turned me 180 degrees back, back to the roots of a land I left but that never left me. I draw its nectar now. I move through its dream time. My writer’s hand is no more mine. It is my ancestor’s. It is my descendant’s. And it is more. Tis more. Tis more. My knuckles are tree-knots. My fingers: branches. My heart: an amber node in a deep winding structure that winds its way to nodes and nodes and nodes that long to speak again, to speak again, to sing again. And our song is the opposite of the sound of bombs. It is contrary to the monster’s roar. It is that which no empire can starve or bomb from existence. That which cannot be bought or sold or fabricated. Green song. Green song. Green song in the dark.