Who is popular today?

(For Marian Fitzpatrick and Tina Robinson)
Things don’t happen: things are made to happen By those people who choose to remain unseen;
By those who look at a boarded-up building And reimagine it as a brimming theatre;
Who gaze at a loose configuration of streets And see them come together as a village;
Whose names never feature in the headlines, Being neither seekers of attention or acclaim,
But whose intuition concurs with Leopold Bloom That revolutions occur on the instalments due plan.
If it is true that Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar Did arrive, anxious to brandish flashy gifts
Of gold, myrrh and frankincense, it is only because Someone behind the scene possessed the sense
To saddle camels and point out exactly which star To follow, someone made that epic voyage feasible,
Then retreated to the margins, far too immersed In making new things happen to take a curtain call
At the encore, when kings theatrically bow their heads In a stable, having only somehow made it there on time
Because unobtrusive gods flitted through the cosmos, Orchestrating that darkness to let the star shine.
Dermot Bolger is a poet, novelist and playwright. His most recent work of fiction, Secrets Never Told (New Island Books), was published last autumn