Twenty years have slipped by since
I first laid my head on the tenderness of this house,
a soft buffeting of nature and privacy
the mile long boreen sprouted with grass

in March and blooming hedgerows disguised the road.
Once a sheep snared in wire fencing. Once a fox’s snout
at the double doors, and twice we buried
our dogs, first Buddy then Pablo, under the plum tree.

No, this is not home, children. Not the buckled
apple and pear trees raided by starlings,
the limp cherry blossom whose roots crept upwards.
Not the abundance of metal from you, our youngest;

forks, shears, coins, a wedding ring, all stashed
in the pocket of your trackies, lost to history
in the acre garden. Pallets we shaped into a tree house
now returned to wildness, around us growing on

and towards where we are no longer.
We have moved, let go of things; this house, that fox,
the golf putter, the last plum on the window sill
where the sun might sweeten it.

 

*
From Magma 92, Ownership

 

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