You don't know you're Irish
till you're Irish no more,
you don't know you're Irish
till you walk out
the door
and carry your suitcase
to some foreign shore
so is this what it means
to be Irish?
A son or a daughter,
that's how you were known,
the child of your father,
your mother's dear son.
You
were never uncounted
and never alone:
you didn't know what it meant
to be Irish.
You lived in the house
at the head of the glen,
you walked to the chapel
as one of the men.
You stood
in the doorway
then walked back again:
it was easy
enough to be Irish.
You don't know you're Irish
till your Ireland is gone,
hull down in the mist
of a soft Irish dawn,
held
down in the mist of
a memory half gone:
tell me, what's it like
to be Irish?
