There is a Story'

by Rose Moran

In the library
It came back to me
My father’s telling:

As if in dark a bird off-course
Had hit him in the chest
The message clear: Go Back
Take longer routes by fields
Leave the river road
The waters would have borne
His dead body that time of
Black and Tan suspicion

The man with the commission
To fire the fatal shot told him
Years later how they awaited
His return – the Parish Hall
Committee meeting –
‘You should have been a dead
Man’

My father’s story down the line:
Someone’s Prayer saved me
And we wondered why anyone
Would want to take our father’s
Life from us

Reproduced with kind permission of the author. This poem was composed in a Poetry as Commemoration workshop held in association with Longford Archives at Edgeworthstown Community Library, in October 2023. The workshop was led by writer Mary Melvin Geoghegan.