This Far

The following is based on two people in my extended family who celebrated the turn of this century in their own incomparable way. It was put to paper just as soon as I heard the story from another relative but in recent months editing has sadly become necessary and so the poem has had to evolve with the time.
I considered that such a singular celebration between an elderly husband and wife was sufficiently touching enough to be captured in this way.

This Far: New Year's Eve, Ireland, 1999

Amidst the chaos of the world
festive souls greeting one another
in spirited drunken merriment

mumbling about the Millennium
how it would not happen
again in this lifetime;

amidst the electric hum of history
happening, unfurling its words
in a clutter and tumble of frolicking

there was a corner of the world
hushed and untroubled
and a tiny house where one light burned.

And beyond that single gleam
a room with two old souls;
he and she sat by a coal fire

almost seeming not to care
as the clock neared midnight
no dancing, no exultation.

In their half-century together
they'd watched the world change
over and over, seen it wear new faces.

They had always worked their
fingers raw on the farm
uncomplaining, strong, silent

working through the frigid winds
from the edge of the Atlantic
the edge of the universe.

Spent their together years looking
and still no word to explain the way
sunlight dancing on green-grey water

could make a body feel mighty
and humbled at the same time.
Those two, rooted among their dear ones

as much a part of the soft landscape
as the moody sky and long grass
salt spray and honest mud,

they turned to each other then
as that last chime sounded,
faced each other as friends.

One of them said solemnly,
"Well. Who'd have thought we'd get this far?"
and they shook hands.

They made tea after that
drank it wordlessly in the new century
all essentials uttered, another day closed.

Now one of them is gone
And unnoticed in the noise of things,
the world has changed some more:

by a chair left stunned and idle
or by the uncommon absence at noon
of a contented shadow on the stony road.

This far, they said, who'd have thought?
Of course, this far, that far
will never be time enough, not nearly

but the slow step and amble of a life
spent kindly and lived for one another:
worthy of honouring with a handshake.

-TheElementary