At Harold's Cross

This is a poem from the "Dublinia" cycle; and I can tell you the exact date it was written - 23/6/92. In some rare moment of organization I actually dated the piece of paper I scribbled it on.
The cottages are still there, at Harold's Cross, all but uninhabited and awaiting the fell blow of the developer's fist. It seems fitting to post this now, before they disappear forever.



At Harold's Cross


There is
in Harold's Cross,
quaintly decaying in a set,
four cottages of antiquity and
mildewed gloom;
two-roomed, tiny
infested by cats and old people
shadowing beside the damp park
and public toilet; a florist where
brightly bunched carnations hustle
with the hearts and diamonds of the funeral
wreaths and spill across the street on Sundays;
a Church of Ireland church
grey and gothic spired,
with a cemetary beside
and a gatelodge for the graveyard -
all crevices, and sepulchred doom.
I often pass , staring down from the
window of a bus,
wondering.

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