[ t h e ] n o r t h [ e r n ] [ o f ] i r e l a n d by Pádraig Ó Tuama

[ t h e ] n o r t h [ e r n ] [ o f ] i r e l a n d
by Pádraig Ó Tuama

It is both a dignity and                                                          
a difficulty
to live between these
names,

perceiving politics
in the syntax of
the state.

And at the end of the day,
the reality is
that whether we
change
or whether we stay
the same

these questions will
remain.

Who are we
to be
with one
another?

and

How are we
to be
with one
another?

and

What to do
with all those memories
of all those funerals?

and

What about those present
whose past was blasted
far beyond their
future?

I wake.
You wake.
She wakes.
He wakes.
They wake.

We Wake
and take
this troubled beauty forward.

---

This came into my life just this past month, read at a colleague gathering by my colleague Zand Craig, who comes from Belfast along with Padraig so this is a poem very much in my head in his voice and cadences. Part of its complexity lies in that Northern Ireland and the north of Ireland are not the same name; one is the Unionist construction (the country, named), the other the Republican construction (a direction, a region, a refusal to grant the partition full ontological status). The questions, like “How are we to be with one another?” is what is asked echoed in every conflict, Gaza, Israel, Sudan, Lebanon, Ukraine, and spiraling ever onward and out through place and time. And in the midst of that, “I wake, you, she, he, they, we and take this troubled beauty forward.” All of this is carried by all of us.