Today we toured the suburbs of Belfast. The Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods are segregated and divided by "peace walls" that are open during the day but shut every night at 10 pm. We signed the peace wall that divided Shankhill (Protestant neighborhood) and the Falls (Catholic neighborhood) and looked at all the murals inside each one. We then went to a Catholic cemetery and we were given a tour by a man who was a former member of the IRA. It was raining and cold and one of the most sober experiences I've had here. Afterward I sat in at coffee shop in the city centre reflecting, and I ended up writing this poem.


The Sun Comes Up Over Belfast

The sun comes up over Belfast,
and the rain falls on green hills
and runs down the streets
of Shankhill and the Falls.

Sheets of wet,
thunder pours out of the clouds
and my leather boots
are soaked all the way through.

I stand in a graveyard of volunteers,
men who died for their own truth,
under a sky that turns from blue to grey,
and a mountain that turns from green to black.

In a walled city, a divided land,
a man tells me of his own truth,
a holy and murderous song,
that although has quieted,
will never be completely silent.

He’s simple man, standing in the graveyard
of his comrades, of his friends, his brothers.
Beside the Crucifix and the Virgin Mary,
he speaks of the freedom and unity that he killed for.
That they died for.

Between murals and peace walls,
friends by day are enemies at night.
No Legislation, segregation, nor integration,
not even a few pints of Guinness in the city centre,
can make this country neutral ground.