Lessons Learned in Dreams

Publication Instance Details #2163

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	War HR Activism/Humanitarian Work
Irish Context	HR-related International Involvement (Ireland)
Languages	English
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	The speaker of the poem recounts one of his wartime dreams in this poem, possibly during his time as an Irish peacekeeping soldier. He cautions us not to dig up dead bodies during wartime or remove the dirt from their faces so that the dead might breathe. This is important as their killers often place primed grenades in the pockets of their fallen comrades, so that anyone who digs them up will be killed as well. The speaker also acknowledges that 'you'll never stop digging' - i.e. you'll never run out of dead bodies to uncover.