and as a stranger, I left the High Street,
preferring instead to find an oasis of calm on the hillside.
Slowly, I climbed past forgotten headstones,
some upright, some tottering and some laid low,
until high above the mossed tree trunks,
birds, like children, frantically twittered.
Beyond and more defiant still, stood the dumb church,
its duelled towers and distended shape,
a vulgar and sinister testament.
Gone now, was the incessant noise of traffic,
the thump of drums, clang of symbols, and the balmy
and pantomime laughter of children.
And there in front of me were the twins,
Paul and David.
Loved by their parents.
And recently dead.
Paul, who had lived for "41 hours".
And David,
who had lived for "2: 1/2 hours".
And there in the damp and fading light,
I saw it proclaimed, as truth.
That, love is eternal.
And that Time, - is never past.
__________
© Cormac McCloskey
Some slight adjustment has been made to the punctuation, and the final two lines of the poem, have been rearranged as one. Cormac, 18th February 2011
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