All this was when the eachtrannach
— known as ‘starfolk’ in the English —
came back from space, shiny as new,
alike as teaspoons in the drawer,
each with a whispering box of tricks,
so they might understand us, they said,
though they never did, consoling
our livestock for their prisonment,
lips pursed at the way we flaunted
sex organs of plants in our homes,
intrigued to catch sight of old folk,
a thing that they no longer had.
There was an old boy from Connacht
that laid claim to a hundred years,
one for each wrinkle on his face,
and boasting of more grandchildren
than he’d had teeth in his head.
He played the part right enough.
“Weren’t the Ursh the last true men?”
he wheezed, like the perished bellows
of an ancient harmonium.
“Wasn’t this the winter, when those
who listened only to their heads
forgot the most important thing?”
And those poor, clever eachtrannach,
pinned by doubt like the encounter
of two carts in a narrow lane,
might have just sat there forever,
waiting for the world to claim them.
The old fellow gave us a wink.
