Wearing the green

Photo ©O’Dea

Wearing the green

Today, memories crowd, the best room, 
unpacking the damp green bundles in their cotton wool beds,
shamrocks, real ones from home.

Faces crowd, Uncle John Colleran, Aunties Norah and Winn, 
Mary Cain and Patrick, Brian and Anne, 
Damien, Carmel, John-Joe, Bernadette,
old Patsy Brennan, the Harkins, Paddy Phillips from the dogs,
bent over the green, pinning clumps damp and dripping to coats,
the frail-leafed link with a past still so close.

Then the procession of lilies from that same room, another March, 
another shoot grown tall with imparted wisdom and died, 
and one by one, like memories fading, we go,

leaving only the digital clones 
who drank Starbucks instead of mother’s milk,
who will never know the magic,
feel the wind, the waves in their blood,
never touch the wild March sky.