"what does being Irish mean?"

a broken hurl with kilkenny colors
signed by Michael Higgins
up on the wall,
in the middle of a waffle house
in Tennessee.
500 million people will pass it and never register anything.
"weird stick"
maybe.
they will never remember it
nor could they
without the words
or the understanding
how could they?

but to a Gael
foreign or domestic
it may as well
be a standing stone
with the name of your father
scratched in ogham.
it is
briefly
all that exists.