JFM Archives - POETRY
(Dedicated to cousin John F. Mitchell 1927-2009),
vice chairman Motorola, inventor of Wireless
It was William Butler Yeats, the poet from Sligo,
Himself, heard whispering to passersby
From his hard bed in Drumcliffe graveyard
Near the Irish Cross guarding the Bundoran Way north
In the shadow on Benbulben.
Yeats said, the Mitchell bloodline from Cloghboley is thinning
When his namesake, William Mitchell set sail.
There was little land, political prison, the harp hidden.
First it was to John, then Charles and Michael Butte,
And then William, the principled penultimate of ten,
Gone to make their fortunes in copper.
Then Catherine, Mary, James and Bernie to the big cities
Patrick Denny was left in the old house with Da Char-less Mohr
And the eldest Old Tom, a fisherman on Fish Lane (of late Kilmacannon)
Later, William left his brothers at the mines to serve God & Country
Then joined other siblings in the city with bride Bridie Keane of Listowel
William now made his fortune as a copper with Bridie - a Brood of Brothers.
There was William, James, Edward and John - all known by other names
And all known by others as precocious in all endeavors
So Yeat's fears allayed when John "the Red" the Harp - sang out in Irish
The true son of Ireland planted Moto in the green ground
and sent sixty-six star-like silver-iridium satellites soaring,
The true leader in the new copper-less revolution
Electromag'ic waves that "danced liked the waves of the sea"
That would change the culture of Planet Earth during His Watch.
Heights of achievement n'er dreamt by Char-less Mohr,
Nor Yeats for that matter! O'John Francis Mitchell,
Perhaps the greatest innovator of the 20th Century.
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