Ronnie McGinn's Poetry Page
| If you have a poem you'd like to see published in The Irish Examiner then send it to:
The Poetry Corner
The Irish Examiner USA
1040 Jackson Avenue, Third Floor
Long Island City
NY 11101
or, preferably, you can email it direct to
ronniemcginn@eircom.net.
If possible keep your poem to 20 lines. You may choose any subject you like, in any form you like as long as it's original. We look forward to hearing from you. |
Bernard O'Donovan of Pinecroft, Grange, Douglas, Co. Cork was in Berlin during November 1989, where he met his future wife Vanessa and witnessed the turning of a page in history.
How the recent celebrations must have evoked old memories and brought his mind back to relive the happenings of the day. He was just nineteen and he wrote this poem at the time.
I See A Wall
I see a wall and it gets bigger day by day
People are walking, talking, laughing and even playing
They have a direction and are moving away.
O God, let us pray, for hope is fading away!
Alas, the wall is now cracking,
Lightning is flashing
We can get to the other side
On the 9th of November 1989.
Finally!
And the sun bursts through the wall -
It has happened!
I can reach out to my brothers, sisters
And their husbands, wives and children.
My mother's and father's grave I never knew,
So near and yet so far away at the other side of midnight
And now it is daylight!
What love and joy as never felt before!
Reality is tough but pure.
It takes the good and the bad to new levels
Of understanding -
Emotional, tears and fear of the unknown -
To have the education to understand
And learn the ways of my new life.
I will, I must survive!
© Bernard O'Donovan
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