David

Like the controls on a radio,

The weather fixed the day’s settings.

The ragged wind down the Liffey

Buffaloed the field’s longish grass,

Gagged the sliothair in the air,

Stitched spectators’ coats sideways.

First half, our hurleys took the brunt:

The wind gagged my side-line cut.

The bank-rooted trees panted hard.

Second half, we pucked eastward:

David beat them by a pocket of points.

The river hushed acres seaward.

Changing, we fumed about the ref.

The Saturday morning flicked ice.

We shivered like tree trunks in snow.

November tests your hurling faith.

David, his black hair like a crow,

Headed for the boats by the mill.

Nightlong, he was missing. Weeklong.

Ten days. A tulle of thin fog

Choked our hearts with a cold hand.

Along the hushed gleaming river

It veiled the weeds that held him.

Who used to laugh, Pass the effing ball.

On the bridge in Chapelizod,

In reveries of mist, a boy,

I watched in case David came

Down the weir in his wellingtons.

I did not want him to go down

To the sea where the sharks circled.

The evening’s shape is changing.

The trees rustle their leaf blessings.

Like flamingos on stilettos

Landed from an exotic lake,

Braving slippery Nassau Street,

Young women peer into boutique

Shop windows on Grafton Street,

Permeate the air with perfume

And the tease of silk and colour.

In the misted-over window

Their under-water faces smile

At a babble of bubbly boys.

David would have dazzled them bright

With ‘Howya girls!’ in his smile.

A violin silvers the yearning

Of a nightingale. And David

Deafens the guilt of memory,

This day, every November.