Armagh

[Mark Cecil]

1st edit Armagh

A place where saints and scholars made their home,
yet you and I now live in homes apart
where spires great adorn horizon’s line,
but you and I now meddle in our feuds.

Where streets bend through the solid brick
and we flow freely through them now as one
like blood inside a single body's veins
yet we bleed green or orange never red

Here Patrick built his church upon a hill
for Christians there to make it cardinal.
This cross shaped edifice of ochre stone
the place of my religion but not yours.

Your gothic church is on another hill
a larger structure, with two steeples great
each like an angel guarding you within,
but carefully watching me there without.

We look for a leader who can unite
a noble king of old lies here to rest
uniting our whole island for a time
But he was buried in my church, not yours.

For we make our claims over diff'rent men
like the warrior who fought for this ancient land
at the place of Navan fort and mound
where this hound of ulster once did reside.

There our forefathers ancient, great and wise
spoke myths and lore from their memories depths:
Cuchullain is the loud shout that they cry.
But we fight to make our claim over him.

We turn to reason and to our libraries
mine is a great georgian library house
while yours a modern house of lit’rature
for we are sep'rate in our learning here.

We both love football but have diff'rent rules
mine you call soccer, yours Gaelic football
we go to our very own stadiums, 
which stand in sep'rate communities.

But we share the same stars, sun, moon and sky
and our Planetarium is for all
where we both marvel at the glory seen
which lifts us up above our petty feuds.

When darkened heaven gives down its light
a hundred million eyes watch and discern
at reasons why we argue and dispute
but the celestial bodies roar are aloof.

The centre of this city is the Mall
where crimson orb is thrown to lowered bat
where people walk in and out of its place
like tiny cells inside a human heart.

There our memorials remember those who died
for British kings you never called your own
but for a city that we cherish now
and that is the thing that unites us both.