I stood on the Embankment
Gabardine mac and cap
Drizzle fell from a blue-black sky
Illumined in its droplets
By floodlight lamps on high
Bolton were playing Wolves that night
I stood and watched it all
They beat us off the park all right
Better on the ball
Coming out along the road
A chap was in a yard
Night watchman I guess he was
He asked how they had fared
Lost two nil I told him
He nodded and closed the door
I felt a brief communion
Win or lose or draw
Bus from Bolton took me home
As far as Shakerley Lane
Walked the rest to our estate
I never went again
Not like that just by myself
Alone and in the dark
But it was a kind of pilgrimage
And it has always left its mark
Brian Fahy
7 February 2023
+ 24 August 1960. I was thirteen years old. My friend, David, had a cold and could not go. I would soon be going back to seminary in Birmingham. This was a little taste of ordinary life at home. It meant so much to me, and the lovely feeling of arriving back home to be greeted by my collie dog, Bruce, and to feel the warmth of family in the house.
Erris Poetry 