Beers & Books CCCXXVIII – Bobby Sands

 Bobby Sands (9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981)

I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets. Tiocfaidh ár lá' (Our day will come), I said to myself, Tiocfaidh ár lá. [Final diary entry]

 

Beers & Books CCCXIV – One Day in my Life

One Day in my Life

Bobby Sands (9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981)

Dear Mum

Dear Mum, I know you are always there
To help and guide me with all your care,
You nursed and fed me and made me strong
To face the world and all its wrong.

What can I write to you this day
For a line or two would never pay
For care and time you gave to me
Through long hard years unceasingly.

How you found strength I do not know
How you managed I'll never know,
Struggling and striving without a break
Always there and never late.

You prayed for me and loved me more
How could I ask for anymore,
And reared me up to be like you
But I haven't a heart as kind as you.

A guide to me in times of plight,
A princess like a star so bright,
For life would never have been the same
If I hadn't learnt of what small things came.

So forgive me, Mum, just a little more,
For not loving you so much before,
For life and love you gave to me
I give my thanks for eternity.

Bobby Sands (March 9th, 1954 - May 5th, 1981)

Modern Times

It is said we live in modern times,
In the civilised year of 'seventy-nine',
But when I look around, all I see,
Is modern torture, pain, and hypocrisy.

In modern times little children die,
They starve to death, but who dares ask why?
And little girls without attire,
Run screaming, napalmed, through the night afire.

And while fat dictators sit upon their thrones,
Young children bury their parents' bones,
And secret police in the dead of the night,
Electrocute the naked woman out of sight.

In the gutter lies the black man, dead,
And where the oil flows blackest, the street runs red,
And there was He who was born and came to be,
But lived and died without liberty.

As the burocrats, speculators and presidents alike,
Pin on their dirty, stinking, happy smiles tonight,
The lonely prisoner will cry out from within his tomb,
And tomorrow's wretch will leave its mother's womb!

Bobby Sands, died May 5th, 1981

'Elephant's' memory

Ah, how interesting to re-read this after 27 years (you may click to enlarge): the Irish Times - and the Irish Press which I was too lazy to scan. Loads of words filling pages.

However, it's the crying 'elephant' - what a metapher! - I'd never forget. It's telling more than millions of words. A few more though: Bobby Sands was 27 when he died. And now was the 27th anniversary of his death.
Mitchel McLaughlin was 35 when Sands died, Gerry Adams 32, Martin McGuinness 30. They are 62 now respectively 59 and 58.

Not that I don't wish these gentlemen well. But I find interesting that - to my knowledge - nobody ever asked why none of this triumvirat well known for talking a lot about solidarity, joined the hunger-strike in 1981.
Ah, well, Ian Paisley did not kill anybody, and so didn't Maggie Thatcher, did they?
And the moral of the story: It's nice to have indians when you are the chieftain.
The peace of the night.

On a Lonely Skylark's Song

Yesterday night I continued re-reading parts of an anthology* of the writings of Bobby Sands. from which I chose the poem for yesterday's post. And, although I did not accept all I read, again I felt deeply moved.

My thoughts? My feelings?
A photo I once took on my various strives through the Bogside in Derry - also known as Londonderry :) - might be able to tell you more than I could in thousand or two thousand words.

Click to enlarge

* Skylark Sing Your Lonely Song, Mercier Press,
ISBN 0-85342-726-7

A burning thread

The seagulls are crying
Swirling up to spray
Upon the ocean of my mind
Blown, by a breeze of yesterday.

Oh! the simple gentle thoughts
The loneliness of the prisoner
To see the golden mermaid of the rock
Yet, to be cut adrift from her.

The mind knows no doors
A burning candle in the night
To seek the green or grey of yesterday
Or the 'if' the 'wish' or 'might'.

In the tomb the darkest depths
The candle flickers dying
Death is slaying life unseen
While the seagulls are crying.

Bobby Sands, died May 5th, 1981

Why would I not forget this day?

It's also the birthday - Happy brithday, James! - of an Irish Dominican I once, in 1974, met in San Clemente, and who happened to become one of the dearest persons in this agnostic's life.
Actually, I am almost sure if it had not been for meeting him, I'd rather probably than perhaps not have come to 'know' Ireland better than my native country.

'to know'? Ah, the more I came to learn the less I felt to know.
Helplessness in the face of a 'terrible beauty' in which children long before their first day at school would know more about hatred than about what day by day is fervingly being preached in the church but not as fervently being practiced: love.

One last sentence for now:
I didn't, don't and (very hopefully) won't ever support violence.
However I am trying to understand its 'sources', its 'mechanisms'.
Nothing more, nothing less.

This just to make sure that I'll not be misunderstood.