I never was particularly aware of being Irish growing up.
I didn’t know the origin of my last name
It didn’t start with a Mc or an O.

There weren’t any signs of Irish culture around the house,
at least that I knew of.

Probably the closest we ever got
was when my father would whistle
“I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen”
when he was driving the car somewhere.

Years later, I found that several generations back
a young Irishman married
a proper Boston Brahmin.

I’ve never learned the full story
though I suspect that his in-laws love their grandchildren
but didn’t tolerate anything else Irish.

As much as I wonder about John and Lucy
I am also curious about Kathleen from the song.

What was the home she longed for and did it really exist
or was it simply another idealized memory?

It‘s a familiar refrain.
In another song, a farmer talks
about taking his wife back east
for Christmas,
if the harvest’s any good.

But the harvest rarely is
as good as we hope
and even if we do make it back east,
we find things have changed.

I think of Tarkovsky and Nostalghia
of Woolfe’s Angel, looking homeward
but not being able to go back,
and I sit, writing,
knowing I can’t go home again, either.

My mother’s dead,
my father’s in assisted living,
and my childhood home
is now owned by strangers.