AN OLD LADY The old motorbike she was The first woman in those Parts to ride - a noble Norton - disintegrates With rusty iron gates In some abandoned stable; But lives in sepia shades Where an emancipated Country schoolteacher Of nineteen thirty-eight Grins from her frame before Broaching the mountain roads. Forty years later she Shakes slack on the fire To douse it while she goes Into Bushmills to buy Groceries and newspaper And exchange courtesies. Then back to a pot of tea And the early-evening news (Some fresh atrocity); Washes up to the sound Of a chat-show, one phrase Of Bach going round and round In her head as she stares Out at the wintry moon And thinks of her daughters So very far away -- Although the telephone Makes nonsense of that today. Out there beyond the edge Of the golf-course tosses The ghost of the "Girona," Flagship of the Armada -- History. Does the knowledge Alter the world she sees? Or do her thoughts travel By preference among Memories of her naval Husband, thirty years Drowned, the watercolours And instruments unstrung? A tentatively romantic Figure once, she became Merely an old lady like Many another, with Her favourite programme And her sustaining faith. She sits now and watches Incredulously as some mad Whippersnapper howls His love-song and the gulls Snuggle down on the beaches, The rooks in the churchyard. -- Derek Mahon (b. 1941 Belfast)