Frances

Adjustable paper guide, blackberry picking,

Barry's Tea and red wine, neighbours carol singing.

October winds and matchstalk men, a yellow Renault five,

Mossie the old milkman, and a pocket full of rye. 

Orange kitchen cupboards, cod liver oil,

potatoes for the next day, peelings for the soil.

The kettle's always boiling, jars crammed full,

tomato plants are spoiling, salt in handfuls.

A corner full of beehives, mint sauce and chops,

a black rabbit on the driveway, six crowing cocks.

Guitar frets and card decks, bunged airlocks,

rows of earthed strawberry beds, the oven drying damp socks.

Carbon copy paper sheets, headscarves in the rain,

line-space lever, sink full of ware again.

A little mouse with clogs on, script deadlines,

borage and parsley... sage, rosemary and thyme.

Frances filled forms,

spell-checked,

won awards,

typeset.

She pulled letters from scrawls,

print from shorthand;

all while a small child crawled

on to her lap.

Each submission

meant typing up twice;

no copiers or printers,

just mornings and nights.

I got my fingers stuck between those keys, 

until the electric typewriter muffled their clacks. 

And then a stream of clunky PCs

were replaced by laptops that went fast, fast, fast. 

The technology improved in leaps

of too much change at too much speed.

Arnica and aconite just when you think 

you can make both ends meet, margin release.

(Explanation: On 30/08/2021 my mother, Frances O'Keeffe, passed away. She was 72 years old. She had been very sick for a very long time, really since 1998, but with long periods of wellness between then and 2010. And she hadn't been herself for years. I am one of six children, she is a huge loss to us all, and no less for her seven grandchildren, who she possibly loved more than us. They were lucky to meet her and she them. RIP Frances, 1948-2021).

Fresh Plaster

The smell of fresh plaster,

the seamless poured floor;

the swallows from the rafters

flying in and out the door.

The buildings now fulfilling,

a producing little brood.

Already there are gardens,

already there is food.

Already on these acres

there's gravel and there's lawn.

Only early days,

and the fresh plaster smell is gone.

(Explanation: We waited through a lot of lockdowns to visit our friends at their new home. It was a series of ruins when we saw it in 2019, with our friends living in a mobile home on site. Fast-forward to July 2021 and we thought we'd arrived at the wrong house).

All The Same

Flatbed trailers clatter by,

silage through brambled ditch.

We watch out and identify

the haylage and the baleage.

A four-hour call of everything,

a fifteen-year rectifier.

Lola still threatening

the big move back to Glanmire.

All the time, all that changed

all the same, just re-arranged.

Silk Cut Purple stolen days

tossed and stored, just like the hay.

A Plea To The Cat

To be fair to the robin chicks,

the sparrows and the rabbit kits,

to the naked newborn crying shrewlets,

you were once a little kitten,

who took all the chances given

by visit upon visit to the vet.

Shots of antibiotics,

hoping and finger crossing,

care like you had never known.

Prescription narcotics

at costs verging on chronic,

so you might give this life a go.

Spare a thought for the unwary,

you are a cat who grew up safely,

favoured by some overloaded dice. 

Try to live life fairly,

pick on creatures not still babies.

But, all bets are off in terms of rats and mice.

The Jay

After so many local strolls,
only so many local ways,

the children had given up hope

of stumbling on anything rare.

Then all on one path

a red squirrel, a crossbill,

and a caroling blackcap

thrilling in tuneful trills.

The best of the show

at the end of the day

was the painted crow,

the colourful jay.

An Fhorrach Liath

Not Kealfoun or woody Crough,

Ashtown of the ash trees, Mahon of the coomb,

not Graiguerush, Kilclooney, 

Currabaha West or East

can hold a flame for that terrain

known as Furraleigh.

There are rabbits there, like everywhere,

like all the townlands 'round.

But grey ones without just can't compare 

to the ones within its bounds.

The grey place has big black rabbits,

uncloaked for all to see.

There they live, there they persist,

in exotic Furraleigh.

Man And Dog

The waiting-room man

told me about his fifteen-year-old

sheepdog, recently attacked

by a vicious roving canine.

I felt guilty as I sat

waiting for the pampered cat

to be boostered and elicit delight.

Across me to his man

leapt a glossy exuberant dog.

A whole animal

with an energy I coveted.

The plastic cone in place

now the only trace

of how that life had hung by a thread.

Imbolc

Rushes in February a reliable sight.

A flash of salutary mountain life.

Fold the first, then the second,

fold the third, a layer of blessing

if you like,

Hello, Mr. Magpie, and how's your wife?

Tradition only happens

when repetition matters.

The original fidget spinner,

an artwork without tape or scissors,

is sliding to reunion

in a natural conclusion.

The last rush bends,

the beginning meets the end.

The Shortest Day

Even the evergreens

look faded

before the shortest day is seen.

The fruit trees look like they've barely

ever glimpsed a sunny beam;

the branches bare suggest

they can't go on without the leaves,

and the robin's grubby breast

needs a good old-fashioned clean.

Everywhere everything's got tougher with the cold

The rabbits stare the cat down,

they've time to settle scores.

The heron in the clouds

blends its grey into the woe.

The flowers' stalks are rotten,

they've given up the ghost,

and all colour is forgotten

save for one unlearned rose.

Days stretch, shoots reach,

light drenches, life seeds,

time turns, things change,

a rose learns when to fade.

Flowers die just to strengthen

days darken just to lengthen.

Nature sleeps, insulates,

digs down deep to reinstate.

All energy returns within,

and the world still spins, still spins, still spins.

Billy

Of the seven-side
he's the one that I can set
in my mind as a child:

In short pants with pockets,

and a grin for every dawn,

a pride for all things moral,

a path-clearer for all,

especially the younger;

willing what he was refused

at those ages

on the nieces and nephews

and his next generations.

The roguery was never side-lined,

but duty was his first reserve.

He felt indulged by good times

though he and Teresa deserved

every good.

Billy McCarthy was a man of letters,

a writer of poems, songs, books.

We couldn't have asked for better.

He sang in every new year,

he spoke in prose and toasts,

and took the night in hand.

So, when the new year appears

be assured that he remains in his role,

that post is still manned.

(Explanation: On 29/11/2020 my uncle, Billy McCarthy, passed away. He was 79 years old. He was extremely good to me and I'm certain the other 30-odd nieces and nephews would say the same.

Without making less of the tremendous loss it was for his wife, his children and their spouses, and his grandchildren it was a tough one to go through for me while we were county-bound. I'm only over the border from the family so I think it must have been harder again 

for my cousins in the UK and Australia. RIP Billy, 1941-2020).