For All Their Talk

Eamon Friel Cop. Con.

Suddenly the bells started to speak
And the bells of the town were answering
There seemed to be conversations in the sky
Great salutations of sound in the November night

But the bells up in the air for all their talk
Gave no answer to me there for all their talk

I was like a child head lifted high
And the bells told the time at 6 o’clock
And I stood still in the sacrament of sound
Will there be bells when the roofs on the churches are gone?

On the winter street nobody stopped
And the few passers-by seemed unaware
Hunched in the wind they were going somewhere else
Might we have changed the whole world if we’d gathered and danced?