TO PROFESS LOVE
Gone, the red brick
pavement on Grafton Street –
gone.
Yet, the sombre corners
around Four Courts still
in place.
English ghosts behind the red
brick facades edge off as a modern
haste takes over.
There is still that seedy elegance
MacNeice was writing,
scoffing and sneering about.
The Liffey brown and grey
and the sky’s the latter too –
too often.
Days are not soft to forget –
tough enough to remember the bullets
in Clonee, the Liberties, Drumcondra,
vermin pushed through side lanes
to the precinct. Still there is time
for thought –
by trade and by free will,
and I stroll around with a smile
on my lips to find
her heritage remains. Georgian
Dublin still stands still –
red brick upon brick.
