835

Nature and God—I neither knew
Yet Both so well knew me
They startled, like Executors
Of My identity.

Yet Neither told—that I could learn—
My Secret as secure
As Herschel’s private interest
Or Mercury’s affair—

I see you, I feel you and I hear you
I know the travails you’ve been through
Always there, never looked at
Rarely at peace,  mostly in combat
You fight to hold on and fight to let go
The person you love most may become a foe
Once you’re wounded it lasts a lifetime
Yet the executors never deem it a crime
Its the heart that has to go through it all
And at the end of the day, has to stand tall
I say the heart is a wild creature
It is its own master and its own teacher
And our ribs are its disdainful cage
One that in no way soothes, only enrages
The heart would consider beating the cage down
But it knows if it escapes in blood you would drown

Redemption has no currency
in the holiday nation
young men thank the executors
for small kindness'
as the await the bullets flight

they do not deny the wrongness
of youthful days...
but have learnt, and changed their ways
they do not expect freedom
they understand the debt to be paid
but their unrequited wish is for more  days.

they now travel to their destiny's end
at a small island paradise and the
end of a guns barrel

redemption has no currency....
Redemption has no currency.

Undeserving offspring of
another age inherit sins
of their fathers without
contest or even question.

Sackville Street was our
bête noire hosting an icon
of empire and suppression
removed unceremoniously.

Washington's hands are
blackened by the history
of slavery also being the
US capital of punishment.

Cork City Council needs
to review our inheritance
call in the executors for our
Washington Street legacy.