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This poem is about a young woman I worked with very closely. It's called 'Come the Morning' and it goes to the tune of 'The Trees they Do Grow High'.
Come the Morning
As the trees lose all their leaves
evenings close round me
and I think on all the dreams that’s passed
since my young man I seen,
now I must make my bed in the crook of this blind lane
with a bonny boy who’s young, but who’s growing.
At the age of 15 years
with him I fell in love,
the morning of his 16th year
I delivered him a son;
before my man was 17
on his grave the grass grew green –
pure heroin buried him, now he’s growing.
They brought my love a shroud
of the oriental brown,
for each needle’s stitch I found in it
O a tear it did run down;
who once I kissed so hungrily
kissed the night below –
not his own flesh and blood, nor sees him growing.
They came to take my baby
in the middle of the night,
‘It’s for the best’ one bastard said
and I’m sure that she was right.
O I’d never walk these streets alone
now I walk these streets alone.
I’d forgotten all your names come the morning
repeat first verse
from The Mersey Goldfish (Bloodaxe Books, 1994), © Ian Duhig 1994, used by permission of the author.