REMEMBERING

REMEMBERING.

Vivid

That white paper lunchbag

Held in brown tobacco fingers.

Vivid those hands

Craftman's hands, old, mahogany stained.

Eyes : grandfather eyes

Seeking me out

Through a rusty schoolyard gate.

Later

That long walk to Lee Fields

Where we picked piss-a-beds

For his unsuspecting birds -

Goldfinches and brown linnets.

Our riverbank shadows

Criss-crossing, mingling

Under a low September sky,

Gathering together

Bunches of wormy weeds,

Slimy stems with weepy yellow heads

Our golden harvest.

Vivid also

Little whitewashed birdroom,

The chirping birds

The scattered seed

The half assembled cages

The chaos -

With the smell and taste of freedom.

Dusty skylight

Though which a tiny eye

Could see another Heaven.

Years later

When illness struck

I stood at the foot of the bed,

Understood when he waved me away

That other souls were seeking his company.

AT Curraghkippane Cemetery

Nestling between wood and river

I said farewell,

And as I left the graveyard

His wild songbirds were gathering -

Hovering above,

Little feathered Angels

Ready to carry him

Across a brightening sky,

So that his brown fingers

His mahogany hands

Could touch another gate

Another Paradise.

jim archer