Poem of the month

selected by David Underdown

Detour
by Michael Longley

I want my funeral to include this detour
Down the single street of a small market town,
On either side of the procession such names
As Philbin, O’Malley, MacNamara, Keane.
A reverent pause to let a herd of milkers pass
Will bring me face to face with grubby parsnips,
Cauliflowers that glitter after a sunshower,
Then hay rakes, broom handles, gas cylinders.
Reflected in the slow sequence of shop windows
I shall be part of the action when his wife
Draining the potatoes into a steamy sink
Calls to the butcher to get ready for dinner
And the publican descends to change a barrel.
From behind the one locked door for miles around
I shall prolong a detailed conversation
With the man in the concrete telephone kiosk
About where my funeral might be going next.

Born in Belfast in 1939, the same year as Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley is one of a golden generation of Irish poets. ‘Detour’  shows his strong sense of Irish identity, and humour, and is taken from his ‘Selected Poems’ published by Jonathan Cape in 1998.