WHAT PATRICK KAVANAGH SAW

                (A disused cottage in County Louth)

 

Just up Duffy’s lane over the fields 

towards Mucker, Patrick Kavanagh's 

homeland, just a mile from Hack-balls- 

cross, through his poplars over his wodden- 

gate, lost in an old abandoned cottage.

It was as if the people had just walked 

out the door, like a film set of Patrick-

Kavanaghs catholic Ireland. Lost in 

a world of sacred hearts blood from 

thorns and sepia-toned pictures of Jesus.

Bloody icons littered every step I took 

It seems as if  I had walked into his 

poems in memory of his mother 

and father. All I knew was my brother 

had the jack of a car and I had the branch 

of a tree and we were out on manoeuvres

playing, war games. 

I picked up an ebony and ivory walking-

stick that I was going to use as a gun.  

Don’t,  said my brother who was two years 

older and wiser. That’s the devils 

plaything, after all he was a smart guy.

He could count to ten in German 

and watch, Match of the day

At the same time.

I threw it away as if the plague was carved

into it, I went upstairs looked out the window

And saw what Patrick Kavanagh saw. 

I considered the grass growing cool about my ankles 

on a July day running home through the fields 

with my brother and a one eyed three legged 

dog armed with the branch of a tree.