History Lesson, in memory of my father

Today’s Father’s Day and just over six months since the death of my own father.

My father, Martin Hayes or Michael M. O’hAodha, as he signed himself, died on December 14, 2015. He was a traditional Irish Republican, of  west of Ireland farming stock, classically educated, who could roll to bed with a Latin phrase and rise, with a verse of Greek, gave much of his life, willingly, in the service of the nation he was born with…On the morning of December 10, 2014, when the people of Ireland were poised to express their very vocal disgust and protest at the introduction of water charges but, even more importantly, their outrage at this Government’s mismanagement and complete disdain and disregard for the democratic will of the people, I wrote this poem, History Lesson, inspired by a conversation with him, who was born in 1922, the year of the birth of this nation.

Born at the birth of a nation

in poverty and hope

a new dawn with brooding clouds

broken families

rent by spilled blood and hate

The manifesto of their origins

written in their history

but hidden in their childhood

but that is written by the victors

what did they win?

and who won?

 

our son of the nation
took his education
but learned his history
at home
in fireside tales
of perfidious foes
and fearless heroes

 

He sustained lonely vigils
on a border of two nations,
history told him
should be one
for what he knew
of his nation’s birth
was nurtured
in fireside heat




A story of a history,
stolen and divided,
but by who and why
was never clear
until once he stepped
 in the footsteps


Of those who died
to give their nation
its first breath of life


and read their words
addressed to all the nation
 of cherishing all the children,
It caused him to pause and think
of who had won, what
and to what end?

 

For who and what
is an Irishman
or woman?
Is there a template,
forged from a DNA chain,
wrought by struggle and defiance,
bitter betrayal and treachery?




Or is it fashioned from optimism

a melting pot of influences,
drawn from legend,
myth and conquest,
brewed and nurtured with care,
and respectful, breathless awe
for its’ hostess, Mother Ireland




Resplendent in all her feral beauty,
her memory is the fervent dream
residing in the hearts of emigrants,
the universal identity given
to all her ambassadors.




And for all those who have gone
marching to a foreign drum
who carry within themselves
the crash of waves on faraway shores,
the echo of sounds of home.


A music nurtured from birth
of place and time and race
a heart beating at a pace


for dancing at a crossroads 
or keening at a country wake.


A music driven underground,
by imperial colonists,
bent on oppressing,
and dog collar zealots,
bent on repressing.




Tunes of freedom,
spirits soaring
 stirred souls abroad,
awakening
to the realisation,
the sound and land
they left,
resides within them

 

Our hearts swelled with pride

and opened there
a revelation,
wrapped in enigmatic notion
that all these passions and emotion
could translate into a nation.


How could we not change and changing,
change the world we live in?


though while we changed
the world we lived in
was far beyond the pale
pallor of the land we lived in.


For what happens when the leaders die,
the visionaries who could see the light
of a land of equals
free and proud?




Carrion’s pecking order
comes forth to stake their claim
and rip the throat
to quell the voice within,
steal the eyes
so they can’t see.


The howling jackals feeding
on the carcass of the hero,


while their greatest crime
becomes their greatest failing
the immolation of imagination.


They climbed in a mirror
to become their own oppressor.
Sought, like a wounded cur,
the comfort of an angry voice,
a swinging cudgel.




To kowtow to bankers and bondholders
and bury their own
under a pile of seething debt,
while pawning family jewels
like oil, gas and water
for a derisible pittance.






A monument to their delusion
a chimera of misapprehension
while the forgotten children
abused, discarded, disavowed,
redundant and downsized,
the surplus to their needs.


Lie dead in the streets


that are paved with those spikes
the symbol of a
sickening fantasy.


And now,
approaching the centennial
of his own birth
and the birth of a nation served
wondered again.




As tax piles upon tax
who’s history was it for,
that it should be washed away,
relinquished,
like some redundant lease,
a mortgage in default,
before the freedom promised
could be cherished
by its sons and daughters?©