Aftermath

An original poem in celebration of Comhaltas Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Belfast

In this place we have practised measuring
aftermath, pounds and people were our cyphers
for cells and selves, ‘blast’ our bilabial 
plosive of choice, tongues like detonator
cord rumbling the word before it escaped,
a whole event in our own heads. After the dead
and rubble had been cleared, makeshift boards
appeared in shop fronts, like bandaged faces
of weary mothers, ‘Business as Usual’.

‘Aftermath’, the word our forebear-farmers
used to appraise a field after first yield,
confident of second sowing, and ‘math’
their word for mowing in expectation 
that stubble ground is good for growing,
harvest a grand imagining.

This morning, workmen mount ladders
like orchard workers, plucking verdant
banners, festival fruit to be kept in
store. A street might remember a bomb,
but today’s aftermath refuses the forgetting 
of song; the harp string won’t shuck the plucked note. 

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