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Emigrant Songs
by Peter C Humphreys

For my childhood, my adolescence and adulthood, the Ireland I knew was one of emigration, as it was for my parents, their parents and their parents. This poetry cycle I have written in sequence as one poem, a song of six verses. The people in it were real and are real as they live on in the landscapes of our minds. My family farm was in the Mountains of Mourne, looking down to Carlingford Lough and the Mountains of Cooley. I would never have believed it but emigration is cursing us once again.

1. childhood memories

Cooley calls
and
Cooley shows
across
the water
and
the shoals
as at
eventide
the boats
return full
laden with
a day's 
hard catch
and as we
dash down
streets
so narrow
we hear
the call
of gulls
and girls
awaiting
their 
fulfillment time
and
by the
foreshore
and the
graves
where 
families rest
these years
around
a seal
bobs off
the harbour pier
catching sprats
and mackerel
childhood
memories
times long gone
live
in 
our hearts
as in
our children
on
and on
and
on

2. living landscapes

living landscapes
of
the mind
live on
in
places
most unkind
in dingy flats
and
dismal pubs
on
floors of stations
moving on
in doorways
dirty
doggy
gross
the noble people
of my birth
lived out
their lives
their labour done
in
Liverpool
London
Boston
Cleveland
never knowing
never holding
never kissing
their daughters
or
their
sons

3. Mary

Mary
from her cottage
full
looks down
the Cassy Water's
rill and
thinks of
sons and
daughters
gone 
away
across
beyond
the seas
and when
at night
her youngest born
sucks from 
her breast
a love
forlorn
that wanders
O 
she wonders
when
the light
down on 
the foreshore
bleak
will bring
her people
home
just
home

4. Jimmy

Jimmy's
coming home
they say
upon the
post boat
any day
his letters
full
of wondrous news
of
buildings huge
and
jobs to spare
but
in the lean
mean
mountain air
I wonder
I
just
wonder

5. photographs

photos
tucked
into
drawers
images
too painful
to ignore
show
bright and hopeful
faces lost
across
the sea
as dead
to me
but not
to thee
as we stand
on the 
brackeny bank
bounded
by water
on both flanks
the fuchsia
bend
their tender arms
dropping
tears
of blood
tears
of
love
tears
of
sorrow
for family
gone

6. today

today
we walk
the foreshore
of wrack and wreck
kicking stones
as bones
of people lost
we look
up
to rills
of rock
that now
alone
forlorn
and lost
stand
as broken ribs
on mountain bare
where years before
our people
cared
laboured
loved
lost
at such a
cost
and what
a cost
to them
but 
such a gain
for me
and
for
you

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