The Claddagh Ring

Well, since you ask, I’ll tell you how, for fifty years
this ring has been worn, or one just like it, on this finger.
Mom began in the sixties each trip home to Galway
she’d bring back one ring or two for our dad and
their children, to wear as family symbols - the Clan.

She gave me one at eighteen when I was in High School
but I gave it a year later to a girl who captured my heart,
no matter that we married, mom felt she’d been betrayed.
So much later she gave another and a stern injunction
which bound that ring to my finger for decades.

She died in eighty-two and just before her death
lying in bed with terminal cancer, she asked, what
should she give from the house, “just the books, please.”
She told me where to find her own ring, forswore me
against giving it away to anyone, ever or longer.

My brother had taken it without a qualm or guilt
but returned it when demand was made and later
I showed her the ring, intact and present still,
rewarded with a smile that took effort to make
and she looked up unto those hills and passed.

My son and I vacationed years later in Maui
scuba diving for a week in glorious coral
but the night dive master forbade the rings
as dangerous bait in flashing lights below
Michael’s Claddagh and mine were sent topside.

The car was burgled, rings taken, mom lost.
My sister stood in place of our mom for me
and bought a new ring from the same store
from where mom used to get hers long ago;
this magical connection was sympathetic.

Now she too has passed and I wear the ring
as if it were the one from five decades ago.
Though I have bought Claddaghs for my kids
and Claddagh wedding rings for my wife,
this sister-mother heart ring crowns my hand.

26 April 2019 (# 26)