Let me not go tamely out to sea
the eternal sea
the only sea
that waves us on to oblivion.
O let me rant and roar as the very
waves
as always down all the bruised days of my reckoning .
Let me shout
and scream and laugh and curse
and pray in the hollow rock of my penitence.
Christ, you all-seeing son of an inconceivable woman,
don't let me
die between the sheets
or even between the thighs of some foolish ready
woman.
Let me die with the wild wind in my few hairs
the mad Irish
weather scudding over my mind
the bitter-sweet aftertaste of oaken beer
anointing my senses.
O Lord of wine and water
fire and snow
purifier and destroyer of all my days
grant me this;
that when I die
it will be under an Irish sky.
Christy Brown (June 5, 1932 - September 6, 1981)
