Resurfaced, never widened.
The verges grassy as when
Bill Pickering lay with his gun
Under the summer hedge
Nightwatching, in uniform –
Special militiaman.
Moonlight on rifle barrels,
On the windscreen of a van
Roadblocking the road,
The rest of his patrol
Sentry-still, in profile,
Guarding Mulhollandstown.
Or me in broad daylight
On top of a cartload
Of turf hand-built and squat
As a drystone beehive hut,
Looked up to, looking down,
Allowed the reins like an adult –
In the picture at last,
The one on the whitewashed wall
Of a horse and cart and turfman
Embroidered on calico
In what they called ‘the long ago’,
Framed in passe-par-tout.
Or that August day I walked it
To the hunger striker’s wake,
Across a silent yard,
In past a watching crowd
To where the guarded corpse
And a guard of honour stared.
Film it in sepia,
Drip-paint it in blood,
This was/is the Wood Road.
Resurfaced, never widened,
The milk-can deck and the sign
For the bus-stop overgrown.
