hold firm, dublin
Through Sandymount, Irishtown and Ringsend
Old Dublin, Joyce Dublin, Jameson Dublin, James Connlly and Jim Larkin Dublin.
– The working man’s Dublin,
Where they drank Porter instead of Stout,
Pints of plain paid for with a Friday wage packet —
That sinewed world of labour
Stilled in statues and heavy bronze rope
Slung now over the Liffey Quays
These old bricks have seen it all,
Unimpressed by their new occupants and glass neighbours
Wise to it all
In their own way
Home to generations of mothers who built families
On the twig of poverty and the straw of grit
Hardship?
That’s nothing new here.
And these old streets don’t hang painted in galleries,
Foreigners – not just from abroad
Walk them now
But it’s an altogether different affair here
And new accents won’t change that but
The orange utility glow of council lamps confound
Into a certain notion, a different class of a thing
They bleed and brush like a warm painting into the still barely bright blue
Of that which we wait all winter to say: “there’s a stretch in that evening now”.
A stretch in the evening:
Jesus, it’ll only be a stretch now till summer,
And god knows don’t we need it.
And by god it’ll be a good one
And by god the pints will flow and
Bygones will be bygones
And
We’ll miss those who are gone
And life will move on
As it always does, unhurried by our circumstance
Oblivious to our calamity
But in it’s own loping gait, a cadence known only unto itself
The warm in the air:
Maybe we’re not quite there yet,
But you don’t need it, you have the summer just around the corner
and birds are already chirping,
and the odd bush of flowers starting to put something else
- something good in the air
And on these old narrow streets, Dublin streets,
You pass the white light of the chipper
And the teenagers outside
And the lads bargaining for their Friday night pint from the window of a closed pub
And out on Sandymount strand
The tide starts to turn
And you find yourself stronger than you thought
Strong enough to run
Strong enough to hope
Strong enough to hold
