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Irish Pages LTD
The RevivalAuthor(s): Gary AllenSource: Irish Pages, Vol. 2, No. 2, The Earth Issue (Autumn/Winter, 2004), pp. 95-96Published by: Irish Pages LTDStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30022024 .
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IRISH PAGES
Hazlett reached this age pulled from his hiding-place among the dank pools of flax
spreadeagled on the threshing floor,
fifty lashes tore the skin from his back.
Oh father, what is it that sets us free if not the same mistakes that bind us:
farm machinery pushed aside down the slopes to a dried-up riverbed,
and a baker's honed knife
flung to the long grass.
THE REVIVAL
All these girls clothed in white without a word, blow down the street to meet their brothers.
The clouds are high in the sky -
it is summer.
The trains from Belfast stand at the station
carriage doors flung open.
This way -
my great-grandmother's hand in mine
though I am forty years older -
come down to the river's edge
95
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IRISH PAGES
where Moses waits a long beard of bullrushes -
a man from Monaghan come upcountry having set Dublin in flames.
See how she shines in the water a child become gold voices singing free of poverty bare feet slapping stone.
NORTH OF NOWHERE
These are cows that move dumbly across the gorse and thistles,
but they could be human
alive in their own stream of piss their inattention to what surrounds them:
in that shed over there I stretched gut ten hours in salted water
hands ballooning - the bloated maggoty carcass of one who got too close to the river,
the child who left us to swim the floods.
These beasts are giant munching the car-lights on the motorway striding the black slated roofs of the housing estate.
Where do cows go to sleep at night mister? my ma says standing in fields
have you ever seen a bull's balls,
96
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