My Wilted Irish Rose

An Irish knee-jerk safeguard from distress
For centuries is a fatalistic guess
That only emigration can relieve
A desperate need at home to beg one’s leave.

For sure, the cruelty of British rule
Created misery enough to fuel
Despair that might have crippled other folk
Who didn’t have the stuff to bear the yoke.

Reality the Irish see askew:
Calamity that strikes the world as true,
They view through lyric prisms that refract
And make a gauzy poem of plain fact.

For twenty years they cast aside this shell.
For once, their country boomed; they did quite well.
Today a banking meltdown hurts the isle.
New times might look like old for quite a while.

But if a race can take misfortune’s turn,
And exercise what others have to learn,
That beauty shines despite adversity,
I’m proud today my name is Timothy.

—St. Patrick's Day, 2011