You Must Go Back
Do not go back he said and for what.
To a childhood time many moons ago in Ireland
In a field of cocks of hay and a very hot summer day
Being stung by two bees on the palm of my hand as I pressed against that hay
I would love to run again crying to the house
And that granny would be there with the witch hazel and a loving embrace
To a time when my Aunt Nancy who cried when I would be leave for England
Always producing clothes pegs of wood she had painted for me each visit
To her house and the Ava Maria played from the ornamental statue of the Virgin Mary
And her neighbours who were two young daughters
Who fought with each other over a bucket to take me to the well
Phil and T.C. I seem to recall were their names
And their mother known as baby Brehoney made the best potato cakes ever
I remember the pipe smoke and old granduncle Mark
In their corrugated tin roofed three room house
The black kettle and crook and the permeating turf smoke
To wife Baa as she was known and her 'Not a bad word' would she say about anyone
As children thay always called us Agra.
Chocolate bars for us children that were fry's mint and whiskey for Dad
To well I remember the two lonely first cousins of my father's who were bachelors
And their stiff plastic table cloth that would rise above our heads in each corner
when pushed from below the table
The dinner table itself was pushed against the stair case
Where the tea the sugar the salt and pepper were left on each yellow ascending step
And the spit laden flagstone floor more concentrated around the ray burn
But that ceased when visitors came calling
Too fondly I remember the long mountain top drive from
Arigna to Corn and our destination beside Dad's old collapsed homestead
Along the way the augments with Mom as to who lived in each house
Who married whom, how many children they had and what jobs did they do
The remote church where we stopped to view the best view for 50 miles round
And to pray at our Ladys grotto. And an occasion when there were so many inscets
inside the car that they consumed half the interior volume of the car.
Copyright © Ian Foley | Year Posted 2013
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