QUEUING
(i.m. Knute Skinner)
Oh yes, there is queuing beyond the grave
And sometimes it spills over to this side.
Take the example of Knute Skinner, poet,
Whose voice was stolen by a stroke and who
For two years queued in silence, not quite gone
Beyond the world but inching onwards. Once
I published a piece of his about a driver
Stalled in the top spot of a traffic queue,
But yesterday his family, friends and neighbours,
Assembling in a tumbled Clare graveyard,
Saluted him for getting the green light.
O'Brien's Tower, Cliffs of Moher
Poem © Ciaran O'Driscoll 2023
