Ian Paisley And Henry Cooke Poem by Barney Rooney

Prepare the granite plinth
he has earned his place at pulpit height
not like Carson out of the common people's sight
in a lonely spot he's welcome to keep
at the end of the grand dipping sweep
to bleached bone Stormont

Ian should be among his kith
where his bronze hand
can be crafted to touch
not the hem of the garment so much
as the cold arm's crook
of the just as reverend Henry Cooke

The old people will say
we could do with a man like him now
the children will say
whose them two?
the Big and the Black Man arm in arm
up there oxidised beyond harm
foundered in the damp air of Belfast