A new poem remembering my school days at St. Joseph’s, Carrickmacross
St. Joseph’s
If I was to play
a melody
of childhood songs
it would not place me
in the benches. The school
bells sound from the hill
but other children follow them
and there is no chalk dust in the air.
There is a little boy
sitting on the wall
but my mother is not slipping
him buttered mariettas
through the gap.
There are no short pants
or marbles rolling in the clay
as the days draw their curtains down.
I cannot smell the polish
as my feet paced the corridor
towards the magic organ,
The Christmas tunes
from the Master’s fingers are gone
like yesterday’s breaths.
If I was to play a melody
it would reach out to the dead
and plead for another final day
to tease, scream, sing and cry
and when the spell would die
that I would hold tighter
Like the daisy in my clasped hand.