there is nothing worse
than a politically drawn border
it’s like a break in a limb
a break that won’t heal
yes you can put a cast on it
but it still won’t heal
yes you can take drugs for the pain
but after a while the drugs don’t work

Talk about what we know

….the border between Northern Ireland
and the Republic of Ireland …..

for a while there in the mid sixties
it was a border we crossed
to get condoms, Mars bars and copies of Playboy
(not available in the south)
then the minority tribe in the north
got tired of being kicked around
by the majority tribe in the north
(isn’t it always the case)
then came civil rights marches
Sunday Bloody Sunday
violence to counter violence
atrocity to counter atrocity
hard men talking about
glory, sacrifice, our patriot dead

down south we stopped crossing that border
and took the boat to England
to get our condoms, Mars bars and copies of Playboy
and, yes, abortions too
because it wasn’t all sweetness and light down south either
it wasn’t all little green people playing fiddles
and lepping up and down like a herring on the griddle-o
but that’s another story

eventually up north after nearly twenty years
reasonable people on both sides started to talk
agreements were reached and a lull ensued
but that low hum of anxiety is still there
the morning after atavism has not yet dawned.
Is this a lesson too late for the learning
or a lesson for our times?

I’m just talking about what we know
I’m just talking about what we know.

Over at Desperate Poets, the challenge was to write about Desperate Crossings. Also over at Dverse, Bjorn asks us to explore the use of the collective pronoun “we” in writing a poem. Bjorn points out that this way of writing is particularly useful in a political context.

Also it’s been a brutal week in the Middle East, which was another impetus for this poem.