By Maureen Benzing
A farm boy in woolen pants
Works in fields of rich, brown loam
Stooping to set potatoes in rows
The cuckoo in the gorse-bordered fields
Sings its haunting song
Oldest lad at home on the land
Three brothers gone from Kloonkeelane
Gone from home, gone to the West
The crow in the tall ash tree
Caws its lonely lamen
His mother tends to the old grandmother
Confined to the bed by the hearth
A charred soul, who fell into the burning turf
A cricket in the ashy hob
Chirps its relentless tattoo
His father rests in a grave by the sea
Killed by his horse on a moonlit night
Just at the bridge, not far from home
The banshee keening by the water’s edge
Listens for his last breath
His younger sisters and baby brother
Gather wool from the bramble bushes
Wool to be spun into yarn for cardigans and socks
The sheep wandering in heathery bogs
Bleat in nagging repetition
Turf stacked high along the stonewall
A man’s work, the cutting and drying
Done out in the bog on bright, sunny days
A boy of only twelve years out in the bog
Laughs and thrusts his slane in the turf
He’s only a memory now
Maureen Benzing is the author of “The Greenhorn” series in the Irish Edition.