Sonja Broderick - The Parade

The Parade

Where the church had stolen the crowd,
they spew out excited now, a great
chattering assault on the lonely streets.
Populations of town and village converge,
an orgy of underclass and privileged alike.
Stigmas are left aside, the infirm, the young,
the disenfranchised blend into a family,
but only for today.

The creeping groan of the bagpipes leads
and toddlers hide their fear in a shoulder.
A snake-head edges through,
dispersing the voluminous mass as
a collection of souls reduces main roadways
to slender unkempt trails and paths.
Alcoholics, sad and separated feign painted smiles,
share cursory waves of recognition with each other.

Rural children become townies for the day,
their accordions respirate as ceilí bands
one by one pass by like lungs,
heaving with their Patrician cries.
Young whistlers march proud,
oversized sashes of allegiance
flapping on their arched, tiny chests.
‘Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh siad’

Praise them, for they will come, surely
and make the cynics succumb to laughter.
The music begins to die and brigade sirens
dispel the smell of a roasted pig.
With a reversed whoosh
the mob is sucked in like a backdraft
to the bars dotted on every street.
Into the falling dusk, faraway whistles deplete


‘Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh siad’ means' praise the young and they will come' in Gaelige, the language of the free Irish.

Sonja Broderick

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