Carrickmacross*
to Mary Ann Connor

The stones stand tall and white in Umerafree,*
in shadows of the church and fragrant earth,
these deaths of farmers, names and dates, and distant births,
McNallys, Riordans, Connors, Garveys, lying still and low.
Some fallen far from home, in uniform and ragged rows,
but most just stopped and broken by the fields, so worn and weary,
remembering the faces of sisters, mothers, sons,
but knowing well at last that all is done.

An empty house stands too in Umerafree,
its edges cracked and splintered, dried and gray,
filled once with laughing voices and clinks of glass,
as pints were raised to Aunt Meg’s tales of Belfast and Portree.
The long, long hours of summer, and sheep scattered in the grass,
aching knees and endless work, till the very close of day,
and all long since departed, a rusted tractor slouching in the rain,
their silences are all that now remain.

We search for them, through broken windows, in letters carved in stone,
but they belong not to us, but to their island, and the green, green earth and sea.
We dream that there they might endure, in good company, not alone,
with the river and the hills, that forever stay the same,
and we think we hear the voices of children, laughing and calling their names,
carried high on the wind in Umerafree.



*Both towns in County Monaghan, Ireland