Jason Brennan: ‘Rosary in Clifton Park’

Rosary in Clifton Park

The silver cloths of mist which draped around
the bandstand, trees and bushes, wet her brow.
Her “clever son” would no doubt tell her how
her memory was stirred by sight and sound.
“Forget these nonsense thoughts of long ago.
There are no fairies, ’shee nor gentle folk.”
He’d cup her face then stroke her hand and joke
“Ma, you think they followed you from Sligo?”
And though she heard them chatter in the grass
and saw their shapes escorting her along
the hedgerows, she was never once afraid.
Before she left, the priest had said at Mass,
“The Queen of Peace can walk the Caves of Kesh.
So pure is she that even fiends obey.”

Jason Brennan