You do not belong to this soil,
not the way they did—
feet sinking into peat,
lungs lined with salt and prayer,
bodies turning to moss before memory.
But still, you stand here,
four generations late,
hands in your Primark pockets,
mouthing names you were never meant to carry,
even as they sit inside you,
your first name stamped with their last,
a borrowed relic you never earned.
Your brother gripped the wheel like a lifeline,
right-side driving out of Dublin,
left shoulder braced against muscle memory,
like he expected the road to turn on him.
Mom rode shotgun,
printed-out censuses fanned across her lap,
highlighted, annotated, dog-eared—
a roadmap made of the dead.
You sat in the backseat,
cheek against the window,
watching Ireland unfold in slow exhales—
stone walls dividing nothing from nothing,
a horizon stitched with ruins,
the color of a postcard left too long in the sun.
Mom recited their names like prayer beads,
rolling them through her fingers,
waiting for recognition
that did not come.
And then you were there—
the grass, damp and grasping,
twined around your ankles,
softened under your weight,
pulling you down like something remembered.
The graveyard was older than the road that brought you there.
Headstones leaned like tired men,
softened by wind, by rain,
by the weight of a hundred years unspoken.
Their names smoothed into murmurs,
the dates washed into dashes.
And at every grave,
a small stone sign,
half-buried in moss,
letters chipped but certain:
KNEEL AND PRAY.
Not a suggestion. A sentence.
You did not kneel.
You touched the name instead,
ran your fingers over the grooves,
over the letters that built you
without ever knowing you would come.
A crow clicked its beak from the low wall,
watching the three of you like it had seen this before,
like it knew how this ended.
You whispered something you could not name.
The wind took it from your mouth,
tucked it into the tall grass,
laid it at their feet.
And then you left,
but the wet earth held its claim,
clinging to your soles,
like it knew you’d be back.
