Poetry Paul Boden

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: PAUL BODEN

Paul. is a father of two (soon to be three) from a village called Bryansford, near Newcastle in Co. Down.

He grew up Catholic, his wife is Protestant and they’ve raised their children without any faith practice. They recently moved back to Ireland after living in England for almost seven years.

What is the legacy of blood?

Perhaps it is the legacy of those who walked the path Before me, paving my way. Whose own blood still marches through my veins. Perhaps it is their legacy drummed out with every beat in my chest. Echoes in a generational refrain. A refrain which has been amplified with suppression under iron fist. Sometimes deafening to those with a mind to listen.

Perhaps then that is the legacy of blood. The boiling and bubbling in my veins when I walk this land and look to the sky. I find its hue crossed. Blood placed there and folded into cloud by those who would Staunch our legacy with perverse transfusion. I surely still hear the refrain.

I wonder if perhaps the legacy of blood is an obligation. A debt owed to those whose blood has spilled So that the weight of oppression would be lifted. But a legacy of blood spilled grows with every call to arms.

When only our rivers run free, we follow the pulsing break into the rapids. Where do we emerge when the free-running rivers are fed from the eyes Of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, green and orange? What is the legacy of the blood that stains our soil?

Perhaps there is no answer.

What legacy is written in my own blood? As I cultivate my family garden, how do I nourish the seeds that sprout from the land? Would those who bled to fertilise the soil I walk on recognise a song of acceptance In answer to their refrain? Or would they conclude that the man who can't carry on the beat Is a man without heart?

Perhaps.

Does blood still travel through the veins of our ghosts? Those patriots and martyrs who gave themselves wholly to the land. If I share this blood with the departed still, and am beholden to their wants, Is the drumming in my chest just the steady march of our endless funeral procession? If so, then to where do we march but to our own demise?

No, I think not.

A legacy carried forward mindlessly on the shoulders of the young is not honoured And we do our fore-fathers greater justice by reflecting on the stands they made. To neither disregard the sacrifices made through ignorance Nor through the zealous eagerness to write our own names alongside theirs. So perhaps, the legacy of blood is the freedoms we enjoy? Those hard-fought liberties. And the debt we owe, to careful consideration?

Can we carry forward a legacy of gratitude? That no longer are our doors kicked in by boots Made heavy with the weight of tyranny? That our children may taste the fruits of greater freedom without watering its roots With their own precious life-blood. Can we savour the fruits of their labour before sowing the field?

Perhaps the legacy of our blood will be in the decisions we make, How they shape the world before us, And the freedoms we each have to take them.

If so, perhaps your legacy will be in teaching your children to make good ones.

(P. C. Boden)