Recollections of an Irish childhood

Thoughts from a Peat Moss in rural Ireland (late 1960s)

I slid my hand up the brown shiny banister,
It smelt of pine and dreams as I left the peat filled living room
" Good night Uncle Bill, Good night Uncle Joe - are we going to the mountain tomorrow?"
' Aye Son ' and I dreamt .

And I dreamt my uncle sat on a sack
At the back of the tractor
his brother the driver
And I squeezed in, somehow
my feet on a chain that held something
And some sway
As our exhaust wheezed up the hill

The sea, the cliffs
the farmhouse and the livestock shrank
and shrank as we left farm and fireside far below.

The keepers of the mountain
with their tangled horns
and spot-red fleece
cross eyed us as we entered
they scattered and spilled
with syrupy sure-footedness
across their rock carpet domain

Cruel crows caught by their beaked curiosity
Hung lazily from posts
Their dried feathers flapping
Their spirits flown
Where sky and moor and harshness close in

What gold we found beneath the earth
Was cut and chopped and carved
And cured for warm dreams
Of Sunday afternoons sleeping uncles

Guarded by the soldierly tick-tock, tick-tock
Of the grandfather clock
as time itself stood still
in that sun spilled, living room

and the dying buzz-buzz of a bluebottle
as it strained to escape
its laced-curtain prison
back to the mountain