Citizenship: A Poem For The Edge—By PJ

Citizenship: A Poem For The Edge

PJ DeGenaro

A poem inspired by The Edge (Ireland’s brand new citizen) on his birthday.

Citizenship

Come away, o human child.

You may now claim the Guinness

And the Parks, both Phoenix and Croke,

You may claim the Liberties,

The banshee, the púca,

Wandering Aengus, and Aedh

Of the blue and the dim cloths.

You may claim Brigid and fierce Cu Chulainn,

Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his all-knowing fish,

The Raglan Road and the Rocky Road

And every cailín with black hair flying

From a technicolor shawl, against a scrim

Of wind-scoured cliffs and churning foam.

Now the mythology is yours.

Comghairdeas on your old-new home.

***

Citizenship decides who can stay

And who must go, and

Naturally, you have passed the test.

What is a country, enveloped (mostly)

Inside a Union? What, even, is a country?

What is a boundary, a border?

How does a three-part Gaul become a single France?

Who decides, who draws the lines,

Who carries a language, a plow,

A baby, a spear, across a strait or a sea

And declares what they find to be their own?

But that’s history.

In the short term, it is important

To possess the right passport

So you may move freely here, or there,

And bequeath an escape hatch to your children

In case the place you’re in goes dark.