Recollections of an Irish childhood

Thoughts from an Irish Childhood (early 1960’s)

Death of an Aunt

We came down the lane, stones spitting sideways
Past the pillars, white-washed and wishing us here
Squat stone-walled dykes cradling
Cattle and suspicious sheep

Where once was green and full of life,
And farmyard sounds and smells
now black became
All grief, all quiet, all thoughts of her
Who, auntie ?
Had no one thought to tell me?
Did no one think I needed to know?

Auntie who once caught us
Spitting in the ‘midden’
And said ‘where did you boys learn that?’

Auntie who dusted soda farls
With the wide wing of a long dead goose

Auntie who smoked and shook
walls when wracked with cough

Why didn’t anyone tell me?
I screamed “ not Auntie , no, not Auntie’
In the room where no one speaks

Who sat with the butcher, Hugh
we called him ‘Uncle’
In his clean white van, all cool and red and quiet
Like meat on the counter
Waiting to be bought,

Who sat by the fireside
and talked sleeping Sundays

We turned around
All blessings said, all goodbyes gone
Back down the lane
Past the pillars, past the sheep
Cows chewing cud

Thinking of tomorrow
and Latin tenses

Bellum bellum bellum
Belli belli bello