Plato's Cave, Dublin 1916-2004

for here’s the cave of dread, numbering those whosit in chains, fire at their backs and between thembuskers from Grafton St invited to play their finest,especially puppeteers, making shadows on the wallsbefore them, forms that seem tall and terrifying, asthe poets from Bewley’s look on, arguing amongstthemselves whether a guitar may be perceived as aguitar, if they can only see the shadow of the guitar,until at last it is suggested they turn their heads, seefor themselves the true nature of things, then makethe ascent into the sunlight, which i did, with Platodrawing me into a piercing brightness with halos ofdust rising from the rubble, the people calling, comeinto the light, come see Cú Culainn , where they willtell you of the republic, a nation you couldn’t touchthen, but that you can now, with a spike in the groundon O’Connell St, for all of us to see, or so it seemedto me, but it was all too blinding, and i went back tothe cave in dread of shadows on walls and what theyshould mean, what i would get wrong, wondering ifever i should be freed from the chains again, wouldi find myself in Bewley’s with the rest of them?