JOB WILKS AND THE RIVER
(Michael Coady)
.
"...of the 56th
regiment, who died accidentally by drowning, at Carrick-on-Suir, 17 July 1868,
in his 28th year."
.
I feel that I know you, Job
Wilks -
No imperial trooper
swaggering
these servile Tipperary
streets
before my grandfather drew
breath,
but a country lad out of
Hardy
drunk on payday and pining
for Wessex,
flirting with Carrick girls
in fetid laneways after dark
out of step on parade to
Sunday service
with comrades who loved you
enough
to raise out of soldiers' pay
this stone
which would halt my feet
among nettles
now that jackdaws are free in
the chancel,
Communion plate lies deep
in the dark of a bank vault,
and spinster daughter of the
last rector,
in a home for the aged,
whispers all night to an only
brother
dead these forty years in
Burma.
.
How commonplace, Job Wilks,
how strange
that this should be where
it would end for you,
twenty-eight
summers after the midwife
washed you.
With that first immersion
you took your part
in the music of what happens,
and an Irish river was
flowing
to meet you, make you
intimate clay
of my town.
.
On a July day of imperial sun
did your deluged eyes find
vision of Wessex, as Suir
water
sang in your brain?
.
I know the same river you
knew, Job,
the same sky and hill and
stone bridge:
I hope there were Carrick girls
with tears
for a country lad out of
Hardy,
drunk on payday and pining
for Wessex.
