Recollections of an Irish Childhood

Thoughts from a hayfield in rural Ireland (late 1960s)

We laid our backs against the stack
And raised our hats to wipe the sweat
and hayseeds from our brow
Caps cocked to shield the sun
thirsts slain in the billy- can

We squinted at swallows in their drunken dives
With no rhyme nor reason nor route to roost

Our limbs tired and toiled those fields
till sun set where stacks , some small
gave birth to bigger ones

The day the baler came
With reverence we accepted
Its offspring into our blistered hands
And hauled the golden crop to the barn,
With many a shout ‘Watch out’
as one bale tumbled from the trailer
into the pressure cooker of the barn

And we built castles that night
Tight to the tin high heaven roof
Castles for cattle whose winter weary days
Were bunged up
in dunged up, silent byres

And they would chew the cud
And chew the cud and taste the summer dew
when winter froze the ground
And we were boys
in the spring of our lives