Irish Goodbye

And finally, our (optional) prompt for the day. This prompt challenges you to play around with the idea of overheard language. First, take a look at Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “One Boy Told Me.” It’s delightfully quirky, and reads as a list, more or less, of things that she’s heard the boy of the title – her son, perhaps? – say. Now, write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard that made you laugh, or something someone told you once that struck you as funny.

I wasn’t able to come up with anything to day for the prompt. Instead I wrote a poem as a kind of diary/record of a strange event of the day. I went home to my family for the Easter weekend. I got back to Dublin late last night. When I saw the landlord this morning (the landlord also lives in the house I rent), he informed me that one of the tenants had disappeared without a word on Friday. I didn’t know the guy too well, since he was quite reclusive, but when I did talk to him I liked him. He was in to meditation and a healthy lifestyle. He had been saying he was going to leave someday, but no one really believed he would actually leave without saying anything. I asked him a few times where he planned to go. He would always just say “somewhere with more sun.” It is also true that it took the landlord less than 24 hours to get a new tenant in the room, it really says a lot about the housing situation in Dublin at the moment.

He was a strange-seeming man who never
spoke, except to complain about vaccines.
We shared a roof for a year, meeting once
a day, during overlapping routines.

Left early Good Friday, without paying rent.
In the days leading up he had moved
all his belongings, piece by piece, leaving 
some canned food and a toothbrush, unused.

The landlord was in shock, he had known the
man for four years. Loaned him money when times
were tough. He never said goodbye, nor hinted 
at where he would end up. No rhymes
nor reasons behind the event. Just a man
moving on and leaving behind a debt

Not to worry, the landlord had the room
Filled and active again by next morning.
Twas an Irish goodbye in the coldest
sense. A dissapearance without warning.