Cast aside patchwork of mountain-climbing fields,

Full-falling waters of valley-carving streams,

High skies, colours of gorse and peat,

Winding windy roads going from somewhere

To nowhere in particular.

Slow thinking, slow moving,

Fast departing people,

Where do we go from here?

What use now remembering

Hugh O'Neill or his nephew Owen Roe,

Holding the Blackwater

Against the English?

Where are the factories?

There is no smoke in these valleys,

Empty roads, except on Sunday mornings.

Where must our children go?

What will they remember of Tyrone

When school days are ended?

Citizens of some other and less lovely place,

Wherein the heart holds only heart breaking memories.

Strabane, I was born there

But in Strabane I know I will not die.

May 1967