The Wood Road

Resurfaced, never widened.
The verges grassy as when
Bill Pickering lay with his gun
Under the summer hedge
Nightwatching, in uniform –

Special militiaman.

Moonlight on rifle barrels,
On the windscreen of a van
Roadblocking the road,
The rest of his patrol
Sentry-still, in profile,

Guarding Mulhollandstown.

Or me in broad daylight
On top of a cartload
Of turf hand-built and squat
As a drystone beehive hut,
Looked up to, looking down,

Allowed the reins like an adult –

In the picture at last,
The one on the whitewashed wall
Of a horse and cart and turfman
Embroidered on calico
In what they called ‘the long ago’,

Framed in passe-par-tout.

Or that August day I walked it
To the hunger striker’s wake,
Across a silent yard,
In past a watching crowd
To where the guarded corpse

And a guard of honour stared.

Film it in sepia,
Drip-paint it in blood,
This was/is the Wood Road.
Resurfaced, never widened,
The milk-can deck and the sign

For the bus-stop overgrown.