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When Abdul Moneim Khalifa Met Darach Ó Cath​á​in

from An Ownerless Corner of Earth by Francy Devine

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about

(Devine, music trad arr O’Connor)

lyrics

At the wedding,
the swirling, smiling, skirling wedding
of Mohamed-Rashid Ahmed Adan,
Somali Rashid,
and Eurdike Eleanora Gschwind,
fair haired Schwäbisch
and her polite fustian clad family,
we celebrated in Meanwood Working Men’s
Saturday afternoon Concert Rooms.
Eddie O’Donnell from Black Sod
belted out Basin Street, Quartier Français
Louisiana blasts that got the sweat flowing,
tore the buttons from the stiff, high-collar shorts,
got old Aunt Kreszenzia galavanting with Raouf.
It was wild after that
with mouth and finger music from Bahrain
and Leeds Céilí Band melodeons hitching every
djellabia for unrelenting Sieges of Ennis.
Friedemann tunelessly mourned Der Schwarzwald
and Ambrose Aheng Beng hypnotically
stirred downtown Juba with Chicago.

By five o’clock there was a single,
untrammelled market for whatever you’re having yourself,
nothing flagged and youth was in excess supply.
Then, from a corner, Darach Ó Catháin sang,
Darach of Inis Leitir Mór
by way of Ráth Chairn and now demolishing,
not quite yet urbanely renewed
Ritter Street off Blackman lane,
Darach sang and plugged every disparate central
nervous system into some magical main-grid psyche.
No one understood a single word
and everyone understood every word simultaneously.
Abdul Moneim Khalifa,
Comrade Abdul Moneim Khalifa,
communist poet and Development Economist,
wept at a discovery he thought beyond him.
They embraced, Darach and Abdul Moneim,
the one in dark, Galician dark,
sardines and fulmar eggs Irish,
the other in Nilotic, cardamom coffee,
chilli red Arabaic.
They held hands, entwined their fingers,
called each other brother
and made us all whoop.

Never had there been such a wedding,
the talk tomorrow of Omdurman and Gezira,
Dysart and Ros Muc.
Rashid and Eurid lovingly wrapped
their wonderful wedding present
in the plain, white tissue of their memory
and Wolfgang and Rabah,
Ute and Badria Ibrahim,
each took home a small fragment of the day
in wee ribboned boxes of obligatory,
amoretti-flavoured wedding cake.
With the stewards sweeping up,
Darach and Abdul Moneim were still to leave
singing of yellow bitterns and wildebeest.

credits

from An Ownerless Corner of Earth, released February 27, 2020
Liam O’Connor, viola and fiddle

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Francy Devine Howth, Ireland

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