My father’s ashes were scattered
In a field full of thistles
On McKinstry Road in Belfast
Whilst the final lines of Joyce’s
The Dead were read.

The wind gently lifted
His remains and blew his spirit
To the four provinces of Erin.

Those same silver breezes
Glided grains of him
Into the heavens
Where the solar winds
Carried his quintessence
Through the universe.

Yet a small part of him
Remains with those Ulster thistles
And to me
Some slight essence
Of an Irish flower
Will eternally be
The son of the traveller.

McKinstry is Gaelic for Son of the traveller.
David McKinstry is a lecturer at Glasgow University and he has a writing partnership with his son, Gabriel (16), currently working on a collection ‘Viral Verse’. His father was a lifelong trade unionist.
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