Today would have been my brother-in-law Hubert's 86th Birthday. A bit like my husband (born Guy Fawkes Night) there were bonfires on his birthday and he always joked they were in honour of him. He was a good man and like my father an Orangeman but for us it was always just a bit of fun, an excuse for icecream and to watch the big parade. It wasn't that partisan! We lived in a peaceful mixed housing estate. Everybody repected everybody else's traditions. It was a good time and place to grow up. This poem reflects the sadness I feel that it all went wrong -- as if it was ever 'right'. But I am fairly certain that the Union is breaking up and that the lily and and shamrock will reunite at some point in the future. Not everybody will welcome that. I know that my father regarded it as inevitable because England has never really cared about any part of Ireland. It was just another part of Empire to be exploited.
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| In my garden today |
Two wrongs
It
was always the tall orange lily-o
and
the sprig of sweet william I loved;
the
drum beat, the drum beat, the rain of July
fashioned
black bowler hats and white gloves.
There
was oh such regalia all strutting with pride
danced
on silk banners and gables and flags,
bands
on the tarmac, ice-cream in the field,
a
litter of people and fags.
Wide
were the eyes of those innocent days
down
unperturbed marches of years
upheld
by religion, supported by crowns,
yet
still barricaded in fears.
But
the lilies, exploded, exploded in grief,
disunited
like tattered flags lie
ghosting
green hedgerows the bullet, the knife,
red pools for both shamrock and lily to die.
©
2020
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| Also in my garden today |
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