A Cage To Hold My Dreams
Treasures Of A Fine Land
May the good Lord never tamper with the immaculate
fiery spirit of Ireland. The treasures of this fine land
of clean air and tidy little towns aren't here simply for
the rich and the curious. Anyone with an impressionable
heart and a gramme of imagination can bite into
its tranquil, haunting beauty.
Much has changed since I lived here as a child.
the old house has gone, a victim of changing times and
countless hardy winters ; some would claim that it died
of a broken heart when it was handed back
to the mountain, abandoned, forgotten, condemned to die
by death itself.
Today, I thank God for the warm life it once had, and for
the ones who gave it ; my old grandmother, with her million
memories and flinty ways, her skin but not her mind
grown slack with time. And grandad, the handsome
ploughboy she infuriated her family by running away with,
tall, soft-spoken, kindly, everything heroic that a child
might look for in a man.
As if especially for me on this brief visit, so as not to
slow me down, the mist clears and I see again the stately
Comeraghs, bolt upright on the skyline, as ancient as
Father Time, stretching their wise old heads above
the clouds to take a closer look at God's universe.
Half a century has not becalmed the urgent winds whistling
through the hedgerows, nor silenced the quiet murmur
of the stream beside the old potato field. I hear the flowing
water whisper and giggle as it skips daintily and ladylike
between the boulders.
Here and there a white trout would shoot from under
a stone and disappear again so quickly that none of us
children could be sure that we had seen anything, as we
trailed our fingers in water as invitingly cold to the touch
as it was safe to drink.
Unheard now, too, are the sounds which thrilled my
young ears ; the cry of the sheep and goats, the bark of
sheepdogs tired after a long day in the hot sun, the drone
of machinery, the welcoming crackle of a turf fire,
the hum of late-night stories told over its glowing embers,
the scrape of fiddle and the lively peep of a tin whistle
in unexpectedly nimble fingers.
Dungarvan 110303
fiery spirit of Ireland. The treasures of this fine land
of clean air and tidy little towns aren't here simply for
the rich and the curious. Anyone with an impressionable
heart and a gramme of imagination can bite into
its tranquil, haunting beauty.
Much has changed since I lived here as a child.
the old house has gone, a victim of changing times and
countless hardy winters ; some would claim that it died
of a broken heart when it was handed back
to the mountain, abandoned, forgotten, condemned to die
by death itself.
Today, I thank God for the warm life it once had, and for
the ones who gave it ; my old grandmother, with her million
memories and flinty ways, her skin but not her mind
grown slack with time. And grandad, the handsome
ploughboy she infuriated her family by running away with,
tall, soft-spoken, kindly, everything heroic that a child
might look for in a man.
As if especially for me on this brief visit, so as not to
slow me down, the mist clears and I see again the stately
Comeraghs, bolt upright on the skyline, as ancient as
Father Time, stretching their wise old heads above
the clouds to take a closer look at God's universe.
Half a century has not becalmed the urgent winds whistling
through the hedgerows, nor silenced the quiet murmur
of the stream beside the old potato field. I hear the flowing
water whisper and giggle as it skips daintily and ladylike
between the boulders.
Here and there a white trout would shoot from under
a stone and disappear again so quickly that none of us
children could be sure that we had seen anything, as we
trailed our fingers in water as invitingly cold to the touch
as it was safe to drink.
Unheard now, too, are the sounds which thrilled my
young ears ; the cry of the sheep and goats, the bark of
sheepdogs tired after a long day in the hot sun, the drone
of machinery, the welcoming crackle of a turf fire,
the hum of late-night stories told over its glowing embers,
the scrape of fiddle and the lively peep of a tin whistle
in unexpectedly nimble fingers.
Dungarvan 110303
