Poem of the week: Jim Cronin Recalls his Parting from Denis Hickey

He never ventured farther than the door to see me out. But that June night of song-thrush and flowering currant he said ‘I’ll convey you to the gate’. He didn’t stop by the dog to urge him to jump on the milk-stand so he could say ‘Broch, give me the paw’, but he walked on without a word to the end of the path. And he didn’t raise his arm or click his heels in mock salute when I started the engine. I thought again of all these insignificant differences three days later at the memorial Mass, and when we lowered his coffin into the earth.

Bernard O’Donoghue’s most recent collection ‘The Seasons of Cullen Church’ (Faber) was nominated for the T S Eliot Prize