Christmas Eve Remembered

I see them going to the chapel
To confess their sins. Christmas Eve
In a parish in Monaghan.
Poor parish! and yet memory does weave
For me about those folk
A romantic cloak.

No snow, but in their minds
The fields and roads are white;
They may be talking of the turkey markets
Or foreign politics, but to-night
Their plain, hard country words
Are Christ’s singing birds.

Bicycles scoot by. Old women
Cling to the grass margin:
Their thoughts are earthy, but their minds move
In dreams of the Blessed Virgin,
For One in Bethlehem
Has kept their dreams safe for them.

‘Did you hear from Tom this Christmas?’
‘These are the dark days.’
‘Maguire’s shop did a great trade,
Turnover double – so Maguire says.’
‘I can’t delay now, Jem,
Lest I be late in Bethlehem.’

Like this my memory saw,
Like this my childhood heard
These pilgrims of the North…
And memory you have me spared
A light to follow them
Who go to Bethlehem.