He Sings by Night

He Sings by Night

We have walked the streets
Where young men died in vain
And climbed the great Dublin hills
To look down on everyone.
Seen a city still striving toward the light,
People still dying to make ends meet.
Where to this day your paper reads
A world of class division. Yet still
From the mountains to the sea
No Right Rose Tree
Dare bask in summer sun.


When he reached the cemetery the sun had long since hidden her true guise and was hanging stationary behind a clump of greying clouds. The ground was damp underfoot and there was an uneasy threat of rain in the dark summer sky. It was early in the afternoon but the heavy atmosphere made it feel like late evening and as John picked his way through the carefully decorated graves it was all he could do to fight off his yearning to sleep and dream. The sight from the hilltop always gave him an enormous sense of humility, he could follow the winding roads down to the nearest houses, small and country like, then further still into the great maze of side streets and disbarred bordellos that had come to be known by the greater populace as a Fair City. The sea could be seen in the distance through the thickening smog, the small villages and the harbours where true Dublin had emigrated years before. He was whistling a song to himself that he had heard years before on a Summer’s day by the baths, the tune was engraved in his mind but the words forever seemed to escape him.
Of all the graves on the hillside this had been the best kept through the years, no groundsman; be he public or private dared to lay a hand upon her. She truly was the envy of the mourners who came to lay flowers on her neighbours for her marigolds always grew higher, there scent lingered longer into summer, her headstone needed not to be polished daily to retain its shine in the dead of Winter and the roses that lay with her in the silence of night were fresher than a sunrise.
John went about his daily lot with pride as usual. He wiped dust invisible to the naked eye from the marble Virgin that watched over him. With a certain amount of effort he stooped low and replaced the store-bought roses left by some other visitor of the night with his own home-grown lilies . With his old cap upon her brow he rested his aching back upon the side of the Virgin and packing his pipe gazed over his kingdom from the smokestacks to the pier and to the ethereal figure of Howth now concealed by fog.
With his daily duty done he packed up his bits and bobs in a threadbare haversack leaving behind only a small flask for her to take her sup and headed down the winding road to the countryesque cottages and his bus to take him back into the smoke.

When he got off the bus near Trinity the cloud cover split and he watched in awe as sweet design shone through, reflecting the toothy smile of the college girls and dimming the pouting children into obscurity. From the gates looking out on Temple Bar he took a right and headed down Pearse Street, passed the old cinema and the Police station, he ducked into a small shop under the railway line and took a seat in what was more like the living room of someone’s own home, a true relic of what was. The genial old man behind the counter nodded in recognition and said something quietly to his wife who went into the back store, or the kitchen as most would call it, and came back with a brown paper bag from the top of which one could see the patched up heels of two newly repaired shoes, John paid the cobbler and thanked his wife and was on his way once more. He started back to towards Grafton Street with the sun on his back; he stopped on Doyle’s corner and arched his neck skyward, not a cloud. The morning’s haze had been lost somewhere among the graves and the thatched roofs. Being that the sun was shining as the weather not altogether unpleasant he decided to treat himself and turned on his heels, he was back passed the cobbler and waiting on a train to take him to Dun Laoghaire before the sun had a chance to warm his face.
Stepping off the old Kingstown line and greeting the cool air with pleasure he smiled to himself and drank deep the smell of the tide. He packed his pipe once more and was greeted with a lit match before he realised the ticket inspector was waiting patiently for him to procure some proof of payment. The ticket inspector was not old, he was not young either; he was middling. But the trouble with someone in such a job as a railway worker is that one can never be quite sure when middling ends and ageing begins. In either case he was more than polite in lighting John’s pipe and retaining a certain sense of business in waiting for a ticket so as not to make the elderly gentleman feel rushed.
From the station he strolled down by the boat clubs and watched the rich cavorting through iron bars, he did not spend long for they all seemed too sprightly and gay for his liking. He toyed with the notion of taking a walk on the pier but decided against it as everybody was out on the pier today and he didn’t quite feel like meeting everyone again, they had had a falling out some years ago and it was best left that way now. No what he wanted was simplicity, a newspaper and a pint of plain. He walked up by the shopping centre on the way to his old haunting ground but on seeing the church thought it best to prolong his simple pleasure and say a little prayer.
The heady smell of incense hung heavy in the air and like the clouds on the hill filled him with uneasiness. There was a mass just starting. His throat was dry and he did not feel like staying for the mass so he lit a candle and said his little prayer in the pews then skulked out into the heat once more.
His feet took him up to the main street then left and towards the watering hole where in his youth he was frequent. He nipped into a corner shop and bought the Irish Times then in through the side entrance and down to the lounge of Sheehan’s, he propped up the bar in the corner where he was so accustomed and unfurled his paper, he nodded to the bar man and waited for his drink. It had been the same for years. With his pint and his paper now firmly in hand he at once felt better in himself and although the news was as awful as ever and although the pint was the worst porter one could buy in Dun Laoghaire he felt a whole lot better for it. Without realising it the time had slipped away and he had been sitting reading the paper for nigh-on 4 hours. He drank three pints and two shorts. He packed his pipe and asked for matches at the bar, put on his old caipin and was on his way once more.
He took a stroll down the promenade and left the lights of the city on his back, heading for the secluded headland by the baths. The drink had taken its toll on him and he found it hard to remember the tune he had been whistling earlier on in the day. It took him a little over half an hour to reach the bench he had seen in the distance. From behind it was nothing but a solid boulder but carved from out the front was a beautiful marble bench looking out over the bay. The bench was big enough for two or three but John sat alone.
The evening was quiet. The baths deserted. The little light that came from the street lamps did nothing to light the bench, or the surrounding area. And there in darkness sat a man with naught but the stars for company and the tide to keep time. And by night he sang.

I’ll take you home again Kathleen
Across the ocean wild and wide
To where your heart has ever been
Since first you were my bonnie bride