When I Was Very Small

We stood in the cleft of the hill...

straining our eyes watching

Orion ride – sure and shimmering

over the ridge, and you opened

your coat...took me inside to a world

of tractor oil, Erinmore  flake,

peat smouldering on a bonfire;

the raw heat of you keeping me

from the cold...

the night – streaked with silver

that fell from a blackberry sky

to fill the Devil’s Punchbowl.

Quivering stars, crowded together

in the wavering air, as Jack Frost wove

peignoirs of ice on brown-frowning

corduroy fields.

And in these warm, balmy days

of a lingering September,

I remember those nights, those

skies – a creed, a pact, a song

written by those same stars

you first translated for me when

I was very small; ‘To bud,

to blossom, to blaze. To know

when to shine, and when

to fall'.