View forty nine
Thursday 14 February 2008
NEIGHBOUR
The museums' neighbour
is a graveyard. To be precise,
Friars Bush Cemetery.
It claims to be and probably is
the oldest Christian site
in Belfast.
Entrance to this burial ground of renown
is by appointment only.
You can't just stroll
willy-nilly among the dead.
The locked black gates have a rusty sign
and a glass-framed page of
presumably official information
- who to contact
and a few enticing facts.
One of the views
from the museum cafe
is the graveyard,
and if that's not a crowd puller
I don't know what is...
Anyway,
my oldest child
when she was younger would ask
between slurps of a drink that was bad for her
what is dead?
will I die?
will mummy?
Tough questions for any parent.
Honesty is required and also wisdom.
I'm done for.
I look to the counter for inspiration
and spy the mint-flavoured tray bakes.
I begin to speak.
I say
The one thing I can say for sure about this is this:
Those tray bakes are definitely dead
- they haven't moved for months.
Enough said.
Thu Feb 14 2008 14:10