SUNDAYS
You follow the thread to your country
childhood, hands frozen potato gathering – little slave!
the goose’s wet head and a yellow spotted bitter
orange in your stocking, your father’s black mare
returned unsold. My nine-year-old self plods
after you dreaming of toasting marshmallows,
you plough forward escaping your six day
week. Your bone white hand proudly meets
my eye, “The fingers will drop off”.
I’m only half impressed and rankle
at all you offer me seeing only blank road,
black trees, purple sky an endless ribbon
repeated each Sunday as we weave our way
back to the car.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaNow I find myself in a city
park weaving the same thread, craving silent
fields, wide skies and the smell of winter.
I remember best November, each yarn
you spun lasted us there and back. You have
borne into me as water into rock, I did not
realise you gave me yourself laid open
on the grey road. What would I say if
I met you here today? I would say leave
it Father, leave your impoverished childhood,
your abandoned schooling, your years indentured
to the alcoholic relative, leave it all, take
my arm and walk with me once more.
UNDER HEDGES
Sometimes, at the back of our class,
a girl would appear, call her Kathleen,
hair stringy yet stiff, clothes reeking
of wood smoke, she would sit ramrod
straight, not touching her unopened
jotter, her new pencil and Bic biro.
We, with our shiny ponytails, hair slides,
pencil cases, chanted tables and spellings,
read poems aloud, parroted our Comhrá
of the week, sang songs as if we might
indeed climb every mountain. At playtime,
she stayed alone in the classroom.
In 4th class, we were now scribes. Gone
were the yellow bic biros, we had fountain pens
with plastic cartridges in velvet lined cases.
My maroon pen went missing. The velvet case
with my initials in gold, remained. Our teacher
was young with notions of equality, but somebody
had seen Kathleen with a maroon pen.
Her desk was searched. I could state
day, date and shop of purchase.
That Sunday, my father walked me by the canal,
crouched around weak smoky fires, I saw five,
maybe six families, brown sacks their canopy,
dry leaves their carpet. I looked while pretending
not to. I recognised her back as she held a baby,
the woman next to her, my mother regularly
gave food to at our back door. On our way home,
I saw cows in fields, cats on sills, dogs on doormats
birds in nests and families under hedges.
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(Photo: bark/flickr.com/CC-BY SA 2.0)
- Poems by Ger Duffy - June 9, 2022