A Great Irish Poem

The Irish like the Poles are great poets.  

 

Maybe it's the years of oppression, the centuries of bad luck, the presence of a strong Catholicism, the yearning for peace, love, freedom. 

 

Whatever it is, the Irish write some great poems.  Here's one of my favorites, by Eavan Boland.  

Quarantine

In the worst hour of the worst season

of the worst year of a whole people

a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.

He was walking--they were both walking--north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.

He lifted her and put her on his back.

He walked like that west and north.

Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.

Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.

But her feet were held against his breastbone.

The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.

There is no place here for the inexact

praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.

There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.

Also what they suffered. How they lived.

And what there is between a man and a woman.

And in which darkness it can best be proved.

~ Eavan Boland

 

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