Crime

We are not and will not be

On the bright side, the right side

Of history. We will freeze

In history’s errant depths,

Among the things that can’t be

Undone (none can) and the ones

That have been misremembered

When not wholly forgotten.

The late Eavan Boland once

Vividly recreated

Scenes from a century gone,

Paper milling at Dundrum,

The hemp and flax, the hard lives

That would never get to spend

The paper money they milled,

Their poisoned, plum brown mill stream,

A crime we cannot admit

And will not atone, the fixed

Paradox of cruelty

And crueler absurdities

That made money, history.

And it’s a beautiful poem

That feels earnest and correct,

Tactile as caustic ashes,

But it cannot be correct.

For all its access to words

That scour imagination,

They’re the reader’s memories

It scours, pulps, and recollects

To mill its imagery,

So readers may think they’ve seen

Something the poet’s shown them,

Darkness in their plum brown streams.