Meeting below Shannon bridge under April skies From where we could just about see your Da's office in the National Bank They say he did the State some service there but as far as you were concerned you didn't care
Sur' why else would you be here, mitching school with nothing to give or leave in this world but Twenty John Player Blue, this boy from the council estate and a mark to be made from a golden can of aerosol spray
We laid it there beneath that bridge with those of others that had gone before Above "Iron Maedin" spelt with the e where the i should be and the i where the e And to the left of that "Brits Out" and "Up the Ra"
I wanted to place a **** before the Up but sharp as a tack you realised that we had left our names and it wouldn't take a genius with or without an i or an e to figure it out so I just let it be
We joked that you had the looks and the brains and if only I had the brawn we'd have been sure to make lots of money and opportunities Instead we sat back smoked and enjoyed our craft How I marvelled over the beauty of your name next to mine added to a date that now goes unrecalled
But recall I do, how when the April breeze would blow even just a little that that bridge would whistle and how it would seem to carry a song of hope and expectation over the river through the underpass and straight onto a promise from my lips to yours
Looking to the past it seems as perfect now as it was perfect then and yet it passed without that kiss that had been dreamed for so long now held up in the breeze of crippling fear and the ease of not knowing and could have beens
I consoled myself with the notion of stages and building blocks for closer binds but blocks they build walls that blind as they get too big to climb and moments do pass as dreams do die under whistling bridges and April skies
I still have occasion to walk that bridge and still it whistles fainter now than it used to do a more distant song carries a nostalgic air for I don't dare to go under nor wonder of the existence of a golden mark of an April day
For the ease of not knowing our names go unseen two more long since lost could have beens
The Shannon Bridge in Limerick City, a popular haunt for those of us wishing to bunk school for the day with nothing but a pack of cigarettes and a head full of teenage dreams. Built in 1988 it is the last bridge on the River Shannon, Ireland longest river. The bridge was also known as the Whistling or Singing Bridge as after constriction wind would blow through the gaps under the bridge making a whistling sound.