i.m. Peter McManus
On TV we were watching the soldiers
parade and saw, far away in Dublin,
how men filed past in martial splendour
while officials took a salute.
In droning celebration a band thumped out
The Foggy Dew. Did these heads, too,
drum to a bidding voice,
an identity: Poblacht na hÉireann
proclaimed in print across walls?
A die-hard republican veteran, you had shouldered
a gun in history. Fifty years later,
you were watching the screen with a child
and doled out lore and legend
in a steady tone of patriarchal
contentment. With an affable vehemence
you taught me that history was lived.
Memorial pageant, a smokeless sky -
we heard crowds cheer in Dublin.
In sprucened duds I can see you again
as you jauntily strut on parade.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem