I   

He would drink by himself    And raise a weathered thumb    Towards the high shelf,    Calling another rum    And blackcurrant, without    Having to raise his voice,    Or order a quick stout    By a lifting of the eyes    And a discreet dumb-show    Of pulling off the top;    At closing time would go    In waders and peaked cap    Into the showery dark,    A dole-kept breadwinner    But a natural for work.    I loved his whole manner,    Sure-footed but too sly,    His deadpan sidling tact,    His fisherman’s quick eye    And turned observant back.   

Incomprehensible    To him, my other life.    Sometimes, on the high stool,    Too busy with his knife    At a tobacco plug    And not meeting my eye,    In the pause after a slug    He mentioned poetry.    We would be on our own    And, always politic    And shy of condescension,    I would manage by some trick    To switch the talk to eels    Or lore of the horse and cart    Or the Provisionals.   

But my tentative art    His turned back watches too:    He was blown to bits    Out drinking in a curfew    Others obeyed, three nights    After they shot dead    The thirteen men in Derry.    PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,    BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday    Everyone held    His breath and trembled.   



II   

It was a day of cold    Raw silence, wind-blown    surplice and soutane:    Rained-on, flower-laden    Coffin after coffin    Seemed to float from the door    Of the packed cathedral    Like blossoms on slow water.    The common funeral    Unrolled its swaddling band,    Lapping, tightening    Till we were braced and bound    Like brothers in a ring.   

But he would not be held    At home by his own crowd    Whatever threats were phoned,    Whatever black flags waved.    I see him as he turned    In that bombed offending place,    Remorse fused with terror    In his still knowable face,    His cornered outfaced stare    Blinding in the flash.   

He had gone miles away    For he drank like a fish    Nightly, naturally    Swimming towards the lure    Of warm lit-up places,    The blurred mesh and murmur    Drifting among glasses    In the gregarious smoke.    How culpable was he    That last night when he broke    Our tribe’s complicity?    ‘Now, you’re supposed to be    An educated man,’    I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me    The right answer to that one.’



III   

I missed his funeral,    Those quiet walkers    And sideways talkers    Shoaling out of his lane    To the respectable    Purring of the hearse...    They move in equal pace    With the habitual    Slow consolation    Of a dawdling engine,    The line lifted, hand    Over fist, cold sunshine    On the water, the land    Banked under fog: that morning    I was taken in his boat,    The Screw purling, turning    Indolent fathoms white,    I tasted freedom with him.    To get out early, haul    Steadily off the bottom,    Dispraise the catch, and smile    As you find a rhythm    Working you, slow mile by mile,    Into your proper haunt    Somewhere, well out, beyond...   

Dawn-sniffing revenant,    Plodder through midnight rain,    Question me again.