On The Erection Of A New Cross Poem by Francis Duggan

On the second sunday in august nineteen and eighty four
Twenty six men scaled Clara heights above green Claramore
And with them went a tractor with a huge steel cross on board
And how that tractor laboured and how it's engine roared.

They had come to stand a steel cross where the timber cross
once stood
And they reckoned that the steel cross would last far longer than the wood
But have they reckoned on the wind whose voice is seldom still
That in the depths of winter time rage across Clara hill.

Gray coated steel near two ton weight and almost six yards high
At highest point on Clara hill stand reaching towards the sky
A replacement for the timber cross that storm broke in two
But if strong timber to wind give way then steel may give way too.

Twenty seven names on concrete slab where giant steel cross stand
Inscribed by those who raised the steel and lent the helping hand
But will even one of these men be alive on the day the cross will fall
Or will it be left to their sons a memory to recall.