My inward eye remembers days now lost to time
The childhood years
Ideals rising fast...to fall...through maturing
The learning years
Knowledge picked from the stars
The eyes in me searching
The man emerging
A metamorphosis of mind and bone
Pride grew in me
Irish blood flowed thick and strong
The countryside was mine
The Green Road and Ash Wood
Trips to the Hanging Stone on Sundays
Schoolboy engineers....damming streams on Clogga Strand
Kilmichael Point where we climbed on ruins
The Coastguard Station standing stark
A skeleton from the troubled times
Rain on the Bog Land bulrushes
Blackberries picked in Autumn
The Railway Track we waited by
watching trains come....and go....
to places we had never been
Summer days melting to Winter
Evenings growing shorter
Leaves with death encroaching...changing color
The cornfields turning
Armies of yellow waving stalks in slanting sun shafts
The Corncrake could still be heard
before death by technology...claimed their kind
As harvest came to fill my days
Many hours spent on the headlands
Drinking tea...with the hardened men
Cups of Jam Jar quality served for me
Taste horrible....yet lovely
Talk and laughter ringing loud
through the wild hardships of their lives
My soft skin lacerated...by stubble
as Sheaves were built to Stocks by hand
Yes....and I was strong like them....or so I thought
until the corn served as bed for me
as sleep extended a hand
Evenings spent standing
Father's strong hand holding mine...on the North Pier
Beacon red calling with shafts of light
over the waters
A signal to the wary
We watched ships sail on a rising tide
I remember now my wonder
Innocent...me but a boy..my Father older
Knowledge leaping from his voice
explaining....
They sail for other lands
and I believed....not really understanding
Gentle waves made slapping sounds
on the old discolored stones
Mocking the growing stillness
as the lights came on in town
Icicles of yellow on shadowed streets
Old men talking on corners
Memories of Herring shoals brought to shore....
in the old days
The Wick low Mountains stark against the sky
shadowed to the growing dark
Venus over Cochran Hill...glittering as the sun paled
Wispy mists painting the roofs Grey
Coldness crouching in the air
as...coats drawn tightly...
we walked...
homeward
Motherless for a time
Sickness claiming her attention
Hospital bound..to wait
on drugs and surgeon's wielded knife
Her absence almost unamused
My youth unable to realize the loss
Hospital visits...almost a holiday
Neighbor and family playing the Mother's role
My Father working hard
to keep alive the marriage dream
For half the growing span...alone
No sounds of youth except my own
breaking the stillness of home
The children of other seed forming my company
through the pain and trial of growing
Then....
almost as an afterthought
The cries of newborn infancy
ripped through the solitude of years
A Sister.....
A new found friend on which to wield my experience
The playful years seem absent
But I still recall the scene....when she stood waiting
Tears....stalactites of grief
Flowing pain beneath her eyes
as I....a half grown man
took my leave of home
And time moves
Perhaps....
The separation of years too great between us
Both lost to that gulf of age
A where did her childhood go
She is grown now...A's I
Loved....and yet....
someone I almost never knew
My days of school were days of joy
Knowledge gained by searching
The School House now deserted
A victim of the Planner's dream
The echo of children's laughter rings....down the years
Now beneath the fires and snows of life I crouch
with newfound friends....
as a breadwinner
Through the changes that come of life
Days of youth now memories
I am a man now
Grown....and gone from home
Parents aging and taking their final road to home
Still loved but with altered hue
Letters replacing conversations...for a time
Responsibilities claimed the now lost child
Other people now stake their claim....
of me
And now...with childhood gone
where visions grew in rapture
Outlook changed by living
I cannot be the child I was....but sometimes I still try
Memories relived but....
where is that land beyond the bounds of manhood
And sometimes....in the quiet moments
There is longing
Wordless embers of remembering bestirs my bones
As visions move and cloud today
where are all the words I'd hoped to say
For Childhood....
Ark low....
and Me
