Old Friends

He stood by the door and the sticks shared his weight
Watching the old dog with his arthritic gait;
‘We’re two of a kind Rex’, he said to his friend
‘both of us used up and too ould to mend!’

‘Do you mind the days that we’d both head for the bog
and I’d laugh while you’d loll through me twelve hour slog?
Old Jimmy-Pat Murphy would wander across
and we’d swap all the scandal and argue the toss.

But the turf is near finished and the spade is no more,
it’d take me three days, for to walk to the shore -
and you, ya-ould-divil, sure you’re stiffer than me;
you howl in your sleep, like a feckin’ banshee.

Mary Mills says, that you should be put down
and I should move out; find a flat in the town.
Is that the best way, I says, that you’d find to reward
a loyal old friend that you’ve loved and adored?

The only flat I’ll have, I told her that day,
is the flat o’ me back, in a box, in the clay
and if she had a mind; she could shoot you as well,
then we’d head off together, for heaven or hell.

We’re both nearly banjaxed; meself and yourself
and there’s not many summers left up on the shelf
but we’ll do what we can and give it our best;
when we can do no more, we’ll go to our rest.’