The Keeper In Us Poem by James Fitzpatrick

The keeper in us

Each day, alone, boxed In, she would work the lines
till Closing time,
Then grab her stick and walk
as the moon did shine
And dogs did howl,
at the man staggering to his
Night time bed where others lay and some were dead

cursing the blackened curtain
which fell in misery
Beyond the sight of us who dare not look, till they, the nearly Gone were so,
while we hid behind the wood

When he would shout 'It's Her', the keeper of the key he said,
who would refuse him, in need, a bed
So he could fill the cups of others with his dragon's
Breathe,
but she stood firm, till he deterred did turn and in his pajamas left

Till morning came, and they returned to walk the halls
Of young and old, and sick and good, better for the matron's pluck
And blind keeper of the wood....

James Fitzpatrick

The author's mother worked in Baggot Street Hospital, in Dublin in the sixties. The lady who worked the switch was blind. Every evening she would leave with her cane and walk home. Some nights she would probably pass a man on his way to a bar. In the late evening the man would demand a bed in the hospital, till one night he was refused. This man was playwright Brendan Behan. The poem reflects the early 21st century's attitude toward homelessness....