Thirteen minute ramble one

Would you listen to thone
wee birds singing
if only we had a note
like them to share





Growing up in the land of Seamus Heaney
Van Morrison and Edna O'Brien how could
I not fall in love with sound of stone

Jimmy described the dance hall "Boys it
was so crowded there was no room
to fall down"
or he would scold and say "would you have
a titter of wit"
or "did you come up the river
in a bubble"
intertwined with the
ancient tribe of Delradia
a stone was a stane
a door was a dour
a spout a spoot
diarrhea..dirrirr....two farts and a splash
and daddy taught me his alphabet...
absha
badsha,
lmnopq
rustvw
xyz



my beloved Ballyheather
was a place of peace
underneath a great blue sky the rain fell
in a thunderous roar or in a sweet warm drizzle

ah Jesus the memory banks are overflowing
of wee birds
drinking the fresh cream from
early delivered milk bottles
As they pecked through the tin foil
and we didny mind sharing with them
for their songs were so sweet


The fairy tree of hawthorn would grow
and be respected and never touched
farmers would cut around the bush
to not
disturb the magic of them little people

the rivers were a place to fish or
contemplate the wells blessed each spring
with a sprig of wild garlic and thyme
the land sad with voices of the past
of starvation ships setting out across
the cold Atlantic as millions fled

I was born six years after the war that
ended in forty five and dreamed of Germans
raiding the house where I hid in the attic

Daddy brought home those memories along
with medals and stories of trenches in France

I grew
safe and sound amongst fields of wheat and corn
working in potato fields at nine years old
hands and fingers caloused from gathering
them spuds from healthy brown earth
or
writing a hundred labels at the kitchen table

we shipped our fresh potatoes to distant tables

On sunday we went to church me and daddy
when I asked him why he gave them money
he would tell me he was paying his way
to heaven

For the longest time I thought Jesus
was crucified in derry the walled city
nine miles down the road

We lived in a stone house with stairs
and carried water from the spout that
mammy washed the heavy blankets in

eighteen years of wandering the
hills exploring and climbing bared wire
fences where tufts of sheep wool caught
blowing in the wind like a ancient prayer

we walked to school in the north wind
that turned our knees blue

We chatted endlessly while the
grandfather clocked ticked in
the corner
while granny knit socks

Daddy rode a Raleigh bicycle till he
turned seventy four
me and mammy walked
six miles was to catch the bus to Strabane
mammy would trade walking shoes for
a pair of modest high heels for town