Ah now, boy”s a dear
How would you measure thon?
How an empty milk churn has no song today.
Where has it gone?
The fields are forlorn
For the crows will not call.
They have deserted us.
Each and everyone of us, to fly and to fall
Elsewhere, to be gone, to go away.
We’ll cross that bridge, some day.
For the future is a wonderful railway line
To the mind.
Winding, laying tracks without end.
As if there is no time.
Nor will her train run on this redundant spur.
But beyond locomotion itself.
She will not come back through our intervention.
Yet we wait by this, her old platform.
Time tabled and etched by convention.
The news from Coleraine
Of the Fighting Fergusons
Is that they fight no more.
Their scratched and torn gloves laid up.
For what is the sound of one hand clapping?
Or one glove punching the air?
Merely an ancient wasted fury
Forged by ancestors hammering.
No need for further forgery.
There is no one to fight anymore.
No one to watch a fight
No meaning to a memory lost.
And nothing to prove, to an audience of one.
Any scores unsettled
They can lie with the sleeping dogs
Until Autumn falls amongst us
And the cold bites like the truth.
An empty milk churn only rattles.
No more deliveries made.
No more rounds punctured by the bell.
The rattle of her drum, thrumming still
Her skin, freckled and bruised.
The humming and the harness of her life
Now hanging in the air, empty and restless.
Mother, manager, the top P.A.
In the Tax Office, up Windsor House.
Shopper, problem hopper and wife.
Tongue like a spear with wits like a knife.
Skilful, wilful, full of beans, intense.
Mean only for the family budget.
Holding it together for all of us.
For love never rusts.
Fenced in, observing, ironing out
The uncomfortable creases of life
To store in her airing cupboard for later.
Another day, another time
Anything disagreeable underlined
And a notch in her spine.
Her sound, her fuss, now silent.
A pause, no breath, shared amongst us
As my mother went . . .
Unlike her to slip off early
With nothing to say, that wasn’t like her.
No last word or even a look.
(You know the one I mean.)
Ah now, her good self, gone away.
Gone at dawn, gone in the morning
As the red sky grows, ever yawning.
An open yellow book
With marked pages and secret corners.
Yet memories, like bright sunlight
Flood the mind.
Allowing me to gather up and find the good things
Amongst these hidden toys, long forgotten.
To play with, once more.
My mother has left me, left us.
Still, her little boy, wrapped like toffee
In man’s clothing. “Big fella”, she called me, the other day.
I’m left still looking at an empty space.
Her mouth now, an open door.
Lies, neither open nor closed.
An unresolved gap, worth missing.
I think we shall all find some empathy in this gem. Thank you.
Thanks John. Much appreciated. All feedback is gasoline to the tank and Molotov
to the Cocktail.
Good Luck. Stiofán.
Shades of Patrick Kavanagh and almost as good.
poignant & sad Randall, loved it
Like all worthwhile writing, truthful and painful…Maith thú RSH…