Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Recollections of an Irish Childhood

click on title above to hear recording

Thoughts from the farmyard in rural Ireland (late 1960s)

The burn would run all night and morning
Gurgling seductively outside my bedroom window
Golden brown and bubbling over the peat-moss moors
Sounds of scratching fowls and swishing cows
Cud-chewing to the milking parlour


A sow scraped and screamed at the runt of the litter
And I with one eye opened, feel the gentle Derry air
Lift the lace curtain and blow in a ‘good morning’
With its sickly smell of sweet manure
And fresh squeezed milk from bloated udder


A clang of creamery cans
A ‘get-out-of-here’ cry to cats
That craved fresh cream
And I awake on my uncle’s farm
Oh sweet, sweet memory

3 comments:

andy goode said...

that was a great poem you are a natural by the way you potray the poem so vividly and just great all around keep writing i love your stuff!

percy balley said...

this poem reduced me to tears of the long lost memories of my youth as i am irish i can relate to this poem. however this is not accurate we were born into slavery especially if we worked for the farmers they whipped us bare and gave us a crumpled brown 10 shilling note for a long hard backbreaking day of pulling potatoes up.

Mervyn said...

andy & percy

I am humbled by your comments.

What is really spooky is that I have just written anothe rone called ' And we were Kings' and it has the exact same words' crumpled brown ten shilling note..

Can anyone explain that?

Thanks - I plan to publish and podcast some - are you interested in subscribing?