At Gallardon

(for Mike & Petra)

The Irish are not welcome here -
Canal water flat as new-laid road
Ribbons a path under a shoulder of trees:
The king's mill rattles
To the four-note banter of a cock
In feathery leggings, there's coffee cooling
In a triangle of green hot garden.
What weight of insult banged the café tables
The day the village was locked
Like a ghetto so that an Irish pop-star
Could marry the daughter of a Taoiseach:
See the sinewy track the colour of ash
Going up from here, the stone farm walls,
To the glimmering asphalt of routes
Between towns with memories of sieges,
None more defeating than this.

^

Biography

Fred Johnston was born in Belfast; educated there and Toronto Canada. He was recently appointed writer in residence at Princess Grace Irish Library at Monaco. He is a much published novelist and poet and Director of the Western Writers' Centre, Galway.