I would enter your gate and turnstile each day
endure the emptying of pockets
and the stern shriek
of the metal detector
if I could.
I would greet the security greeters
eager in their pleasant urgency
to see me on my way
to the waiting merchants of drink
and donuts and not nearly Irish enough stew.
I would set free my bedazzled eyes,
take in the tricolours draped from every booth
the green the white the orange
as if they were hanging baskets
in the flower garden of Eden.
I would dwell in the open-sky venues
allow the mini tribes of musicians, fiddles flailing,
to bang on my eardrums
from stages on high
while they dance with ceremonial fervor left to right.
I would meander through the marketplace
of all things handcrafted and Celtic
the jewelry, the t-shirts,
the wall plaques with some other family’s crest,
past birdhouses adorned
necessarily with shamrocks.
I would huddle in pagoda tents with historians
untangling the intrigues
of times past, with fellow devotees
of missions and misdeeds
and a nation taking root.
I would linger even longer with the writers,
standing up close and personal
before potential readers of their musings,
who shift in the unfolded chairs
for a better view of the photo shared,
while the writers wonder who among us
might buy a book.
Yes, absent waking in Ireland
beneath an ancestral townland sky,
I would gather every day to celebrate,
to take all of this tribal humanity in,
and then scatter willingly every night
to do it all again in the morning,
If I could.
For more information about the Milwaukee Irish Fest see here
Comments about this page
Well done Tom. Great to be part of that. “If I could”. That emotion of longing tinged with nostalgia jumps right off the page perfected by your recitation with a lilt of an Irish accent. A great depiction summing up all you could wish for.
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