I like to read obituaries
A go to place each day
Not death
It’s life I want to know
People’s lives are interesting
Now it can be read
Where born how lived where died
We now know when
Ireland
Mid West Radio
They have a daily list
You can read about the people who have died
The names and the places
Those lovely sounding names
Irish names of villages far and wide
And if you die in Erris
You won’t go quietly
The word like wild fire
Spreads abroad and fast
Remembrances in millions
Well hundreds anyway
The list goes on forever
When you’ve passed
It says a lot I think
About the Erris folk
Their nature their kindness and their way
My roots are in that homeland
Glencullen and Doolough
Belmullet and Blacksod
And round Broadhaven Bay
My mammy lies in Irish ground
Along the Westport road
My daddy lies in Tyldesley
Lancashire
The drama of their lives
If put upon the screen
Would pull the crowds
For love and woe and fear
So it is with every life
We all have tales to tell
Dramas of the happy and the sad
Hurdles we have overcome
Struggles we endured
How we triumphed
Overcame the bad
You won’t find that
On tombstones
Or written anywhere
Obituaries they tell a tale or two
But the truth about our life
Is written on the heart
And the Lord who knows the heart
Knows that it’s true
Brian Fahy
14 July 2021
Erris Poetry 