Lost Boys

by Cara Gilheany

We started in the local graveyard,
One quiet St Patrick’s day.
Who was this man?
Well merely a boy.
No sweetheart, no future, no life,
A plethora of newspaper articles followed,
Full of facts,
Typed up and magazine worthy,
But still a quest to follow,
To that lonely field in Mayo.
Where those lives were lost.
I cannot understand why,
I feel a loss…
And connections,
To my own flesh and blood,
That were nearly lost.

Reproduced with kind permission of the author. Cara Gilheany participated in Poetry as Commemoration workshops in Leitrim County Library, Ballinamore, facilitated by Mary Melvin Geoghegan in October and November 2023.