The Irish Penny

There it was where we met, on two ancient rickety stools on aged walnut slats,

that had been stained with blood and beer across years, and the tears of old St. Pat's.

A lovely pidgeon she was, roosting upon that stool in an emerald-green dress, 

and I adored her from the moment I saw her, and the clover pin she bore upon her breast.

It was the first thing I said, to compliment it, and she boasted it was her grandmother's from Kilkenny.

I had nothing quite to match it, but I dug deep into to my pocket and showed her my lucky Irish penny. 

"Does it work?" she asked eagerly. "Does it bring you good luck and wealth?"

"It must," I requitted, staring at her. "Though I favor love and good health."

Aye, the beam in her eye when she held it in her palm, starin' down at that simple copper pingin,

as though it were made of gold, but then suddenly a barefoot lady started to singin'.

So I straightend my tie and fixed my hair, unsure that I was suitable

for such a beautiful woman that she was, aye, and clearly so immutable. 

They were the only two stools open, and mine nearly collapsed and fell.

Hers, it squealed when she moved and beside it on the bar tolled an obnoxious bell

when a drink was poured and ready to be served. 

This, my love, this was the perfect place that was just for us, reserved. 

Then the fellow beside me spilled his beer, and the woman next to her drunkenly recited Poe.

And someone came in with a crying baby in her arms, 

looking for a man she had lost long ago.

And a man down the row threw up in his tophat, and someone on the bar claimed she was Peter Pan, 

and more people poured in, donning their green, and we were like two happy sardines in a can.

We fell in love as the barefoot woman sang those tunes, and a portly gent played the Hospe,

and I drank her Jameson, rather than Bushmills, so not to lose her favor, and though I was a wasp. 

Love trumps faith, it's true, and amid all this Irish anarchy, and drunken hullabaloo,

that night, the two strangers that we were vanished, and we became one who began as two. 

She would joke later that we had no choice 

but to fall in love in a pub that was so overpeopled. 

And shortly, thereafter, we sought the priest that would marry us, 

in the Holy Catholic church with the grey-slated steeple. 

Years went on, fast as they do, as though old age is a rabbit and they are racing dogs.

And every year we sat on those same two stools, through fife, bagpipes, and a thousand dancing Irish clogs. 

I, with my Irish penny in my pocket, and she wearing that Kilkenny clover pin,

I, in the same lucky suit I wore when I met her,

and she in the same emerald-green dress that she wore, where it began and where it begins every year again. 

They once talked of plowing that old pub in 72, until we petitioned the historical society,

and thus saved it, and the town from the misfortune of sobriety. 

"Father forgive them," we toasted in jest, "for they know not what they do."

But we knew. We knew and every year, without missing one, we sat there and drank and ate our Irish stew. 

We had children, and then our children grew, and then we had grandchilden who grew, too, as they inevitably do.

Who all knew that we favored that holiday, and why,

and who sometimes came along with us to that old pub, and drank, without a thought of the by-and-by.   

This year, I made it in at the ripe-old age of eighty nine.  

My grandson bought the pub and fixed it up, naming it after something of mine.

It had all new spouts, a new floor, a beautiful copper bar and amber light,

but I still saw it as it was, long ago, 

when it was not so fancy, yet wonderful despite. 

And our two stools waited for us, restored, with a sign that said "Forever reserved,"

and there I hobbled in and sat where I was, sixty-four years a tradition, one more year preserved.

 

And the party went on, as it has over those blessed and wonderful years, 

with friends and family laughin,' eatin,' and drinkin' their whisky and beers.

And music playin' all the old tradtional Irish songs,

while I sat there and waited for my darling, 

who can no longer come along.

But I, with that emerald clover pin pinned to my heart, and my lucky penny in my palm, 

neither of each, I vowed, ever to part.

I don't see an empty stool. I don't see that at all.

I see only in memories, her smiles and kisses — 

I see everything I ever saw. 

Then our great grandaughter, respectfully asked to fill that seat, who is just twenty two,

and she smiled and kissed me on the cheek, and we both had a drink and a bowl of stew. 

"What do you think, pap?" she asked eagerly, of the pub and the picture near us on the wall.

And I looked up, there to see that beautiful lady that I see still beside me, for I see only what I saw. 

The Irish Penny, he named that pub, though he could have named it The Clover Pin,

which I took off my breast and pinned to my great granddaughter's dress 

for love doesn't end, it only begins. 

And as I got up to leave, I handed her boyfriend that old penny, which is not mine anymore to keep,

to let another love story write itself 

for love lives, and neither dies nor weeps.