My mother told me,
‘Over the hill lies a safer place,
where all things blessed and holy
will greet me with a warm embrace’.
I used to long for this fiction.
Over the hill, beyond the fire.
Sparked by the friction
of old tales men still admire.
Tales of a holy land,
built of the remains
of the bodies of those who stand
in opposition to a land detained.
You can have your holy land-
But never my safe place.
For I can no longer hold my mother’s hand,
Her words, silent, behind that charred face.
Brendan is a law student also studying Philosophy and English Literature. He is a young poet with a deep passion for language and the emotional weight it carries