Friendship

For Arthur and Elizabeth Campbell

__________  

I want you to be remembered down the ages.

Pure goodness and dry with combined.

*

In those troubled times you emerged - insignificant;

and told me of your intriguing past;

and guided me through the heartland of murderous loyalism

to meet Elizabeth.

*

Arthur and Elizabeth!

*

Who had the audacity

to call you Arthur?

*

Ah! The penny has dropped! Of course! Arthur Guinness!

Nothing to do with the round table.

Your father was a lover of the black stuff.

And the minister can't have asked what he was up to.

*

Saint Arthur?

*

But Elizabeth was what an Elizabeth should be:

"Gracious." shapely and good.

It can't have been your looks she was after, but the heart.

*

Amidst the bombs and bullets you never made the headlines.

You had children instead, and daily, made the perilous journey to work.

*

How did you Elizabeth, do it?

Nurse the sick, raise your brood, and keep him on his feet

While he poked around in filing cabinets,

Worried

Philosophised

And smoked through his coal scarred bronchial tubes.

And miraculously, sang in the choir.

*

Soon we will be gone, as will the memories, as is Maura.

Do you remember how, on Ramore Head

We bathed in freedom

And the view?

__________

© Cormac McCloskey

NB. While bringing this collection of poems into line with the book version, today, I have noticed that the lines: "Amid the bombs and bullets you never made the headlines / You had children instead, and daily, made the perilous journey to work." were omitted from the book. This was a mistake, and will be reinstated if there is a second edition. Fortunately the missing lines don't take from the sense of the tribute that is being paid. Cormac 29 April 2012