Every city’s ghosts
Float in our estates
And follow down the river
To where the ocean waits
What unity, a city, other than proximity, physical? We go to work, we come from work. What unity, a shifting mass of people, sky over, river through, ocean yonder, tying knots between tribes?
The river corrib is in full flow, gushing in a torrent down the city-splitting channel.
Are we at home or have we simply come to rest? Is it just, an accident? Do you have time to see deeper, past the gulls, swans, pigeons, salty gales, loose cobbles, and criss-crossing streets? And what is there to see? Is there a unity left, once the postcards stripped away?
The river Corrib is an easy going summer gurgle, under leafygreen banks and the scuttling sculls and the sounds of festival
Oh so many faces and who would you meet at the Galway races?
It belongs to the students, the tourists, the crackpots, the hippies, the musicians, the kids, the hipsters, the hagglers, the small traders, the high street outlets, the commuting workers, the festival blow-ins, the fading memories of diaspora and former liver. Liver, lover, just a canvas, just a canvas, what unity?