Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Our tailpiece is not a poem, nor was it intended for publication. My parents, who were then elderly, came to live in Manchester in 1974. Ten years later, winning the Irish Post Short Story Competition gave me the opportunity to go back. With my wife, Sheila, I arrived on a Sunday morning. This is the letter card I sent to my mother that evening. I found it among her belongings after her death. It is printed here at the special request of Emma, one of our editors.

Ruins and Magner

Crossing calm. Slept most of the way. Dublin showing its age: a faded old star ravaged by facelifts. Raining welcome. 7.30am roads sleeping. Quickly into the country, fresh as it was. Mass in the Curragh. Breakfast at Monasterevin. Lunch with cousin Peggy. Tea with Aunty Ita. Gave a lift to a fellow called Magner; said you'd worked for his father, then asked if I'd been to these parts before.

It's a young country now. Those I meet weren't born when I left and they seem to have an assurance, a sense of the world we never had. I catch myself thinking it is they who do not belong. Magner may have a point. I have not been to these parts before. Yet I know its fabric, its shades and silences. But those I would recognise are long since gone. I search for them here among untended grass.

In the cemetery, nothing's changed much; as uncared for and uncaring. As children, we played here, lurking like poltergeists among its stern memorials. Liam Scully's monument still towers above the others, though less impressive now. An eighteen year old boy a long time dead, but still a hero. Here, shots rang out on that hot summer day, at the end of the long march. Ireland at peace, ceremoniously honouring its dead. Drums and wailing pipes. My father and the others in uniform, marching, heads proudly high, men for an afternoon.

Nellie Doody's stone, I have to search for. Other deaths have encroached. A legend in those religion-bound days. Saint or eccentric? Remember how we argued? My irreverence shocked you. Now I wonder if God distinguishes.

Our part of the road has been left to decay - tar worn away, hedges overgrown, gardens gone to seed. Something always grows. Bridgie Sheehan's house has fallen in at the centre, like a dark old hay rick left too long in the rain. Phillips' is just closed up, the gates roughly tied. Ours is semi-derelict. They've been altering it for years. Perhaps someday it will be a home again.

Sheila cried.