On the Shanafassteen Road - Galway

UNSUPPORTED CODE I(The ancient lines of raised potato plantations are visible from the roads in the hills above Oughterard in County Galway, Eire - this poem laments the long ago disappearance of those whose paradise and playground this once was) UNSUPPORTED CODE Far away, a furrowed field reminds us, you and me, of ancient toil and lives lived out and days we’ll never see. Where sweat and toil were offerings, where lifetimes came and went without the need for anything but soil, and rain, God sent. Where each and every line of green (still visible to this day) reminds us of the long lost world where ancestors once lay. We see their paths, these rocks -their homes - feel spirits long since drawn away from Mother Earth’s embrace, where lives were etched upon this fertile land of mystery, this perfect place of peace this wonderful complexity of ‘Shanafastaoiste’