Derek Mahon

I thought of Derek Mahon
As I stared through the window pane
Out at Galway or Roscommon
Greyed out by the rain
Derelict houses and pubs with townland names
Dampened smoke caught in a cyclone in the air
And I thought of Derek Mahon
And how no one seemed to care.

I thought of Liam Ó Muirthile
And the weight of all things
I thought of the tolling of the bells
And all the emotion that it brings.
A cavalcade of sorrow, a blackening of the soul
The first time you feel all right,
And the first time that you sing
And then you lay awake all night
You should be mourning

I thought of a friend of mine
As I came upon the town
Dressed up in his finest suit
Sister in a mourning gown.
Did anyone else even care?
Does everything just pass?
Or are we as insignificant
As a blade of Connacht grass?

We still believe in all the things that we stood by before

Our heroes were complex men and women
Who did things that could be considered ignoble
Martin Luther King and JFK were both philanders
The FBI followed Bukowski because of what dripped from his pen
And Obama’s previous statements on gay marriage are something woeful
Our heroes can lie and lack any sort of candour

Heavy allegations have been lodged against Patrick Pearse
And William Butler Yeats conveyed some worrying ideologies
And Derek Mahon lives inside his own disused shed
But the beauty they gave our world is still here.
Heroes don’t always have heroic mythologies
But their sins don’t eradicate the meanings of the lives they led