THE TROUBLES - Poem

 THE TROUBLES

(Copyright 2019 by Dave Kiffer)
This field is a soft border
These sheep lally along
Giving it no mind, no heed
To the pain that cut the North
Away from its beating heart
But my old couple is beyond that
They would rather talk of uachanta
And the future that holds no fear
As if their past had been a bad dream
That plagued some other family
We sit in their stone house
Turned toward the heater
Our backs growing cold
As the hours pass along
they talk about The Troubles
The words come out of her mouth
Lightly over her lips as if she
Were discussing ‘the monthly visit’
Not that she ever would do that
as a lace shielded lady of that time
And that is how he describes it,
"that time" but with a Scottish lilt
Dangling the word "time" like a question
In the way that all words in this borderland
Are dangled as if off a Scots man's lips
Too many generations have backed, forthed
Across the sea past Tory to find work
and besides the money, brought back
The accent of the oppressors, the ones
Who caged up the land and booted the poor
So now you can hardly tell the difference
Between the Scots and the Irish, worst
Of all, the distinction is lost in the North
Where the soft lilt hides the bloody breath
and masks the hard men's true intentions

But all this happened two decades past
When there was hope of soft borders
And the coming down of checkpoints
When it really seemed as if most anger
Had finally buried itself away
And my Irish couple are long gone
Their uanchantas are grown with kids
Who are used to a historical Troubles
In which their seantuismitheoirí
Rode the night like happy bandits
This Brexit promises a new border
A chance to rebuild the old walls
A chance to worry about the demarcation
That had once died for lack of use.
That once died because there was no need.

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