Most of us cry sooner or later

Running rest-day ...

... and here's a poem from Julie O'Callaghan's pictured 1991 collection, about the cycle of life that affects us all.

O'Callaghan is originally from the Windy City (Chicago) but has lived in Ireland since 1974, off the West-coast of which The Blasket Islands can be found!


The Great Blasket Island

Six men born on this island
have come back after twenty-one years.
They climb up the overgrown roads
to their family houses
and come out shaking their heads.
The roofs have fallen in,
birds have nested in the rafters.
All the whitewashed rooms
all the nagging and praying
and scolding and giggling
and crying and gossiping
are scattered in the memories of these men.
One says, ‘Ten of us, blown to the winds -
some in England, some in America, some in Dublin.
Our whole way of life – extinct.’
He blinks back the tears
and looks across the island
past the ruined houses, the cliffs
and out to the horizon.

Listen, mister, most of us cry sooner or later
over a Great Blasket Island of our own.