by Peadar Ban
(…Christ plays in ten thousand places,/
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.)
“I have the tetanus,” the old man said,
His accent on the middle of the word,
Standing in soft rain on the wet stone pier.
“The doctors above have tablets for me,”
He said to your man in the driver’s seat
And smiled a row of broken rotted teeth.
“Me braithair is in Dublin today though.
I haven’t the cost is the way of it,
And I thought ye may part with the wee bit
For my trouble, sure. God will bless you, so.”
It was five pounds he got and glad to get,
As cold as sin on the edge of the sea
The one beggar in line for the ferry,
Children wonder eyed at his rags and wet.
He would have shown his twisted feet. Offer
He made and bent to loose his well worn shoes.
Such humility is hard to refuse;
The only richness they have who suffer.
But, blessing was all he showed in the mist,
And memory lasting of eyes not his.
