Christine Buckley poem

De Profundis by Declan Collinge

(For Christine Buckley In memoriam)

 

From humble acorns the stout oak trees grow,

Their great roots probing horizons below

Consigned to dark recesses, shamefully

Smothered, staining the soil of memory.

 

Your integrity opens like the leaves

To the morning sun, your struggle relieves

The pain of victims left without a voice

Through nightmare decades lost without a trace.

 

Beneath the golden bridge your rapids roar

Consuming every span, their rising power

Unstoppable; as the arch comes crashing

Down you slip away, resolutely smiling.