Erin Go Bragh

Image by Jimmy Daniels


Erin Go Bragh

“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone.
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”---W.B. Yeats

In Eire, from the shoulders of the twelve Bens
to the stone monuments at Ceide Fields,
the emerald sun focuses its first radiance
directly on the stone centers of those
massive Celtic crosses dotting the landscape;
like the one at the cathedral of Downpatriot,

perched defiantly over the tiny tomb
of St. Patrick, where the ground around it
is always devil damp with a green coat
of clover, ringed decoratively with
the vibrance of purple heather.

County cocks crow as the pounding
of hidden bodhrans synch sumptuously
with the tumultuous tolling of mossy
encrusted church bells
as dawn bursts upon another March 17th,
forbidding the hoary flocks of banshee
from flight on that day,
as every family stirs, and soon cooking pots
and ancient stoves are ablaze,
sweet with the fellowship
of corned beef, colcannon, and boxtys,
as the great lighthouse at Cook’s Head
in County Wexford goes dim with daylight,
and the spirit of Molly Malone fades
just as the dusty streets of old Dublin
ready themselves for the parades of pride.

Glenn Buttkus

March 2011

Listed as #37 over on Magpie Tales 57

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