Recollections

... we were boys in the spring of our lives

Thoughts from a hayfield in rural Ireland

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 home,

With many a shout ‘Watch out’

as one bale tumbled from the trailer

into the pressure cooker barn

And we built castles that autumn eve'

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 sip the summer dew

when winter froze the ground

While we were boys in the spring of our lives