Casualty

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I

He would drink by himself

And raise a weathered thumb

Towards the high shelf,

Calling another rum

And blackcurrant, without

Having to raise his voice,

Or order a quick stout

By a lifting of the eyes

And a discreet dumb-show

Of pulling off the top;

At closing time would go

In waders and peaked cap

Into the showery dark,

A dole-kept breadwinnerdole-kept breadwinner A person who brings in money through "dole": financial help or welfare from the state.

But a natural for work.

I loved his whole manner,

Sure-footed but too sly,

His deadpan sidlingsidling Not calling attention to one’s self, unobtrusive tact,

His fisherman’s quick eye

And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible

To him, my other life.

sometimes, on the high stool,

Too busy with his knife

At a tobacco plugtobacco plug “Tobacco pressed into a flat oblong cake or stick” (OED), which needs to be cut up and separated before smoking

And not meeting my eye,

In the pause after a slug

He mentioned poetry.

We would be on our own

And, always politic

And shy of condescension,

I would manage by some trick

To switch the talk to eels

Or lore of the horse and cart

Or the ProvisionalsProvisionals In 1969 the IRA (Irish Republican Army) split into two groups: the “provisionals” and the “officials”: “At the Army Convention of 1969 the militarists broke away over the issue of abstention and formed the provisional IRA, which became the dominant grouping, while the remainder became known as the officials” .

But my tentative art

His turned back watches too:

He was blown to bits

Out drinking in a curfew

Others obeyed, three nights

After they shot dead

The thirteen men in Derry.

PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls saidPARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said, / BOGSIDE NIL “Paras” is short for “Parachute Regiment.” According to A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, “On 30 january 1972 thirteen people were shot dead and seventeen injured within thirty minutes by British soldiers of the Parachute Regiment in the Bogside area of Derry”,

BOGSIDE NIL PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said, / BOGSIDE NIL “Paras” is short for “Parachute Regiment.” According to A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, “On 30 January 1972 thirteen people were shot dead and seventeen injured within thirty minutes by British soldiers of the Parachute Regiment in the Bogside area of Derry”. That Wednesday

Everyone held

His breath and trembled.

II

It was a day of cold

Raw silence, wind-blown

surplice and soutanesurplice and soutane A priest’s garments, the loose vestment (surplice) over the close-fitting one (soutane); by association, a priest:

Rained-on, flower-laden

Coffin after coffin

Seemed to float from the door

Of the packed cathedral

Like blossoms on slow water.

The common funeral

Unrolled its swaddling band,

Lapping, tightening

Till we were braced and bound

Like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held

At home by his own crowd

Whatever threats were phoned,

Whatever black flags waved.

I see him as he turned

In that bombed offending place,

Remorse fused with terror

In his still knowable face,

His cornered outfaced stare

Blinding in the flash.

He had gone miles away

For he drank like a fish

Nightly, naturally

swimming towards the lure

Of warm lit-up places,

The blurred mesh and murmur

Drifting among glasses

In the gregarious smoke.

How culpable was he

That last night when he broke

Our tribe’s complicity?

‘Now, you’re supposed to be

An educated man,’

I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me

The right answer to that one.’

III

I missed his funeral,

Those quiet walkers

And sideways talkers

ShoalingShoaling Crowding and moving together as a group, like schools of fish out of his lane

To the respectable

Purring of the hearse...

They move in equal pace

With the habitual

Slow consolation

Of a dawdling engine,

The line lifted, hand

Over fist, cold sunshine

On the water, the land

Banked under fog: that morning

I was taken in his boat,

The Screw purlingScrew purling “Screw” is short for “screw propeller;” “purling” describes the motion of the propeller and swirling water , turning

Indolent fathoms white,

I tasted freedom with him.

To get out early, haul

Steadily off the bottom,

DispraiseDispraise Opposite of praise, disparage, make little of the catch, and smile

As you find a rhythm

Working you, slow mile by mile,

Into your proper haunt

Somewhere, well out, beyond...

Dawn-sniffing revenantrevenant In Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, Heaney described a fishing trip with Louis O’Neill and another person using this word: “The shine of morning light on the lough had an otherworldly quality, it reminded me of the dawn scene in Hamlet, when the ghost fades on the crowing of the cock – so in ‘Casualty’ Louis then turns into a ‘dawn-sniffing revenant’” ,

PlodderPlodder “One who works slowly and laboriously; a persevering toiler, a drudge” (Century Dictionary) through midnight rain,

Question me again.