Copyright © Gerard Smyth; All rights reserved.
In Sitric’s kingdom our games were simple:
Spin-the bottle, Blind-man’s buff.
Every night behind the infirmary
the sun went down but never in a hurry.
That’s where I wore my sheriff’s star,
my Robin-of-Sherwood hat, where I saw the hearse
and funeral car taking forever to pass,
heard carols at Christmas in the Church of St Nicholas
and great bells that shook our window
on the world of trader, merchant,
brewery men delivering stout;
the god of repairs who could mend and fix,
The midwife, too, who lost count
of cries she heard for mother’s milk.
-
Share