TWO MEN OF SEVENTY-TWO

A month separates them: the least of their differences.

In the summer of fifty-three, a month apart,

My father first set eyes on me

And Castro attacked the Moncada barracks.

Children of the fifties, the Revolution and I;

We grew up together in the 1960s,

Though we weren't to meet until 1976.

We all shared the Missile Crisis: my father, Fidel, Cuba and I.

The Russians, said my father; and the Americans, and Castro.

I felt the full weight of my nine years,

And the conservative wish to live a little longer.

Castro was young, and the world weighed lightly on his shoulders.

The conservative peasant Khruschev was afraid, like my father.

Kennedy frightened Khruschev, and Fidel terrified them both.

Remember the Bay of Pigs? Kennedy in Washington,

Letting the Miami Cubans die on the beaches.

Castro among his soldiers and militia, taking the risks,

As often before and often since.

A small green island taking its place in the headlines.

Guevara, mutilated in Bolivia, dying to live forever,

And the spooked oligarchs of Latin America

Soiling their designer trousers from Miami.

Change proving possible, by the beard of the prophet.

A shrill terrier voice, barking doggedly at the world.

With the B. Comm. Under my belt,

In 1976 I turned my back on business,

The prospect of a year's voluntary work in Cuba

Confirming that I was left of a full balance sheet.

My father at Dublin Airport, begging me not to go.

The Cubans, the Russians, the Communists

Would never let me out again.

(Years later, I wondered what he thought

When Aeroflot began daily flights from Shannon,

Linking forty shades of red and green,

For no country is an island.)

A quarter of a century has come between Cuba and me.

Reformed revolutionaries preach the irrelevance of Castro,

But I'll keep a small Cuban corner in my head

Until I find out from Cable Network News

That the world has shoes on its feet,

A book in its hand, and milk in its belly.

Now I see two determined old men walking erectly

Over the long bridge that leads to a new millennium.

I owe them both.

They have awed me in their different ways.

They helped make me whatever it is that I am.

I walk between them, a bridge myself.

KIERAN FUREY