Eavan boland child of our time

There is great irony in the fact that I am putting the finishing touches to this blog post the morning after the dreadful terrorist attack on Paris on Friday 13^th November 2015.  The great sense of outrage and helplessness described in this poem after the events of 17^th May 1974 transcends time and place.  All Irish thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims of this barbaric premeditated attack on the people of France.

Child of our Time

For Aengus

Yesterday I knew no lullaby

But you have taught me overnight to order

This song, which takes from your final cry

Its tune, from your unreasoned end its reason;

Its rhythm from the discord of your murder

Its motive from the fact you cannot listen.

We who should have known how to instruct

With rhymes for your waking, rhythms for your sleep,

Names for the animals you took to bed,

Tales to distract, legends to protect

Later an idiom for you to keep

And living, learn, mu