“6 of our waterfowl were killed or shot, 7 of the garden
seats broken and about 300 shrubs destroyed.”
Park Superintendent in his report on the damage to
St. Stephen’s Green, during the Easter Rising 1916
Time slides slowly down the sash window
puddling in light on oaken boards. The Green
is a great lung, exhaling like breath on the pane
the seasons’ turn, sunset and moonset, the ebb and flow
of stars. And once made mirror to smoke and fire,
a Republic’s destiny in a Countess’ stride,
the bloodprice both summons and antidote to pride.
When we’ve licked the wounds of history, wounds of war,
we’ll salute the stretcher bearer, the nurse in white,
the ones who pick up the pieces, who endure,
who live at the edge, and die there and are known
by this archival footnote read by fading light;
fragile as a breathmark on the windowpane or the gesture
of commemorating heroes in bronze and stone.
- Politics
- War
- Nature
- Time & place
- Sibilance
- Personification
- Metaphor
- Alliteration
- Enjambment
- Enjambment
- 4 Stances
- 14 Lines
- Sombre
- Pensive
- Reflective
- Thought
- Provoking
- Call for recognition of those who help rebuild after war
- Nature / ducks
- Water drops sliding down a window
- War medic / nurse helping lend the wounded during battle
- Ducks represent the innocent casualties of war
- Park represents the calming / tranquility of nature contrasting the violence of war