Picking blackberries –
Against the fading grey light ~
Can’t tell black from red.
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Magnolia blooms –
My Mother’s garden renews ~
‘Sure that soil is spent’
Her mother famously said –
She was gloriously wrong.
Some hands know the soil.
They know what to do with it.
They’re not fine hands, clean hands, they’re rough and thick fingered and calloused but they bring life out of the black and keep a kind of order on the land.
They give firm handshakes.
And hold grandchildren carefully like they hold a china tea cup or a fragile flower.
(For Bob, who knew the land and its people well, RIP).
To the Motherland for a while –
It is clear that I must visit the Sea –
Pick up the familiar clasts and cast them into the surf –
The headlands that I can trace in my sleep, as familiar as the back of my hands (changing with age, wind and sun) –
The sound of the waves, hypnotic and addictive, never easy to leave –
Easier knowing they will always be there, indeed there will always be an Ireland, long after we are all gone.
Virginia rain –
Like home, it falls on my face ~
But it’s not like home.
