Stronger than death

Death introduced himself to the country boy
in a sweet smelling, rank fruit market,
in a great loud barn by the quays in Dublin
where he stood all agog beside his aunt
listening to the uproar he never heard before
of forklift trucks, clanging and commotion,
men bellowing, iron screeching on iron.
His aunt seemed quite at home, bargained
for oranges, apples and pears for the shop
until a man came up, whispered to her
of sorrow, a phone call and death.
All stopped, they raced to her van,
hurtled back to Caragh and the country
through frenzied traffic that terrified him.
His aunt seemed to him to be possessed
by whatever dreadful thing she had been told
and said nothing. He did not know what to say.

She left him at her mother-in-law's house
amid whispers, silences, clasping of hands;
his grandmother gave him tea and cake
and told him his aunt's father was dead.
He recalled a tall, thin man with glasses
smoking one evening on his grandmother's sofa;
now he saw what was meant by death:
bad news flying up the Dublin road,
strangers whispering in the market place,
shocked and frenzied women hurrying home.

He longed for Ladytown's fields and his mother:
since death came screeching into his life,
he felt as if he had been gone forever.
A key clicked in the door. His mother stood there.
He will never forget his delight
that one who was stronger than death had come
to save him from this knowledge and this place.

Published, 2000, in Cyphers No. 48