Meditation #44: Take Me Out to the Lowgrounds
- Meditation #44:Take Me Out to the Lowgrounds
I’m not afraid of lazy men in velvet fronted waistcoats / the elevated churchyard crowdedwith overgrown graves / the sloops laden with war stores / nor convict boatmen on hulksthat never sail / penal colonies swinging elbow to elbow on hammocks amongst the decaying
ribs / contorted in their felon dreams / tailors, weavers, shoemakers scraping the rust from shellsand stacking timber / cleaning guns and shot / spinning and balling oakum / cutting up old rope /What hope is there for me aboard my lowly vessel / hang my shirt instead on the rigging
black with vermin, peppered with cholera / take me out to the lowgrounds where cattlefind shelter / where the upset barrow carries no load / and bury me in the marshes in a placeunknown / where the convict’s flower blooms pale blue before the cold [End Page 50]
Gerard Beirne is an Irish writer now living in Canada where he teaches at the University of New Brunswick and is a fiction editor with The Fiddlehead, Canada’s oldest literary magazine. His most recent collection of poetry, Games of Chance: A Gambler’s Manual, was published by Oberon Press in 2011. He has published two novels. His short story “Sightings of Bono” was adapted into a short film featuring Bono.
