Poem by Paul Hapenny

Photo by Cindy Williams



For Sarah on St. Patrick's Day

What drove you
What drives you now
                                        from dulse and sheep and rocky coast
                                        and a storm in a storm around a storm

Did you look down                                                                  plane
as your
              green
                        world                                                       the
                                     slipped
                                                                             below

Do you look away now
when green clad buffoons
                                                 scream
                                     KISS ME I’M IRISH
                            and stagger from bar to bar in honor of a
                            Mass Card Saint
                            a four time Great Grandmother
                            and a Potato Famine from a book

Lift the glasses
gurgle the phrases
Top of The Morning     May The Road Rise To Meet You

Sláinte      Póg mo thóin      Éireann go Brách”

To the Éireann of myth and mist and wit
of Yeats and Joyce and O’Casey
of noble patriots embracing British bullets
with a shamrock over their hearts
a rosary in their hands
and Danny Boy on their lips

But do they know
the washing of a dead brother
on the kitchen table

And Sarah
on a winter’s night
when the wind blows east off the Atlantic
do you still hear the keening of the pipes and fiddles
Do you still hear the keening
Do you