18/19
Homecomings I stared with brown eyes Down to the Foyle waters, Held out a hand with sugar To a breadcart horse, Et ego in Arcadia … Among Derry oaks St. Colum ‘numbered the stars of heaven this teacher of all things this Dove, this Colum Cille.’
I dawdle at the Guildhall, Buy postcards, a newspaper, Watch armoured cars Patrolling history. Over a Chinese sweet-and-sour I chat to a local. He files the claws Of tribal words For walls have ears.
City of Walls City of Siege Jewel of the north Maiden of the west Undone by drums and cymbals Fat rats! Fat rats! Fed on the Irish dead Fat rats! One for a shillin’
The March wind Body-searches the daffodils I sip tea in a café Read the despatches Of bombing, kidnap – ‘Teach us to care And not to care.’
A stranger among strangers I look for my house of birth. Pulled down years ago I show the paper: ‘I certify …’ Ich bin ein Derryman A stranger grips my hand.
Donemana in Tyrone – Grandmother’s parish Of Smyths and sheep. Dour stone walls Divide, eavesdrop In a scrubbed landscape. Home at last To wet and winds.
POEM: ROBERT GREACEN ILLUSTRATION: DAVID CAMPBELL (ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE AT THE VERBAL ARTS CENTRE, VERBALARTSCENTRE.CO.UK) ROBERT GREACEN WAS BORN IN DERRY IN 1920. HIS EARLY YEARS WERE DIVIDED BETWEEN BELFAST AND MONAGHAN. IN A WRITING CAREER SPANNING OVER 60 YEARS HE PRODUCED SEVEN INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIONS. HIS COLLECTED POEMS 1944-1994 (LAGAN PRESS 1995) WON THE IRISH TIMES LITERATURE PRIZE FOR POETRY. HE PUBLISHED A MEMOIR EVEN WITHOUT IRENE (LAGAN PRESS, 1995). HE DIED IN DUBLIN IN 2008. DAVID CAMPBELL IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON A GRAPHIC NOVEL ABOUT BLOODY SUNDAY AND THE RESULTING LEGACY OF THIS KEY EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE CITY. THE BOOK AIMS TO ENGAGE YOUNGER GENERATIONS AND HELP THEM CONNECT WITH THIS HISTORY. DAVID IS WORKING ON THE PROJECT WITH WRITER JULIEANN CAMPBELL, AUTHOR OF THE BOOK ‘SETTING THE TRUTH FREE’, WHICH RECENTLY WON ONE OF IRELAND’S LEADING LITERARY AWARDS, THE ‘EWARTBIGGS MEMORIAL PRIZE’. (PAST WINNERS INCLUDE BRIAN FRIEL & BRIAN KEENAN). FOLLOW @VERBALARTSDERRY FOR MORE INFORMATION.