From Mountain to Lough

by Matt Duggan

  MORNING

  Buttercups, tall, and proudly aware

  Of the yellowish golden crown they bear.

  Singular beauty, but multiple glare.

  Daisies, in families and clusters spread.

  Delicate whiteness tinged with red.

  Humility blessed with a soft green bed.

  Hawthorn bush, bemused with scent.

  The cherry tree with promise bent,

  Wild rosebud, in an upturned tent.

  Candlestick blooms on a chestnut tree,

  Lighting the way for the honey bee.

  Holly bush blossom, as a filigree.

  Bird song overflows and spills,

  In quivering, quavering, trembling, trills,

  ‘Till music soaks the dew-drenched hills.

  Somnolent cattle, content, replete,

  Chewing the cud with a rhythmic beat,

  Conserving their tails for the mid-day heat.

  Sterile mountain, shaded dark.

  High in the sky a soaring spark,

  The sun’s first rays embrace a lark.

  Dome of blue on a floor of green,

  Colour, light, and sound between

  Rock and hill complete the scene.

  God’s present to the human race,

  Ours to cherish or debase,

  Our testing, questing, resting place.

  WINTER SOLACE

  In winter, when the skies are grey,

  And the Lough sits high on Geaglum quay,

  While Innisrath across the bay,

  Into the flood, retires.

  When swans seek shelter in Kilmore,

  Or the sheltered caves of Derryvore,

  While arctic winds assail Teemore,

  The people haunt their fires.

  Warm in the glow from hearth and grate,

  Relieved of care for church or state,

  Relaxed and free, they ruminate,

  In pensive meditation.

  Outside the winter storms may blow,

  From Corrislough to Cornanoe,

  Bearing a freight of blinding snow,

  Inside there’s no privation.

  The politicians feel the strain,

  Cajoling, threatening, all in vain;

  We share their views but not their gain,

  And so are unperturbed.

  If winter were to last all year,

  With ruddy fire to bring us cheer;

  Would strife and discord disappear

  And life be undisturbed?

  REALITY

  Sporting, cavorting as the winter winds blow,

  Sheltering, floating, flakes of snow,

  Covering the earth with a cold white shroud

  Create confusion and panic below

  In a world that moves on wheels.

  On a Christmas card the snow looks sweet,

  With the world enrolled in a milk white sheet,

  But stuck on the road with frozen feet

  And a car beside you that will not go,

  You feel that snow is best enjoyed

  By the stay-at-homes, or the unemployed!

  The beautiful vision you had is destroyed

  And you know you hate the snow!

  THE HAY

  The politicians must give way;

  In May and June they’ve had their say,

  But in July, we’ll make the hay,

  in unison, together.

  Signs and omens in the skies,

  Are watched by earnest, anxious eyes,

  While local pundits prophesise

  On vagaries of the weather.

  For the weather rules the situation,

  Hours of toil, in preparation,

  Can end in failure and frustration,

  with the advent of the rain.

  And normal life is in suspension,

  The atmosphere is filled with tension,

  And families border on dissension,

  beneath the annual strain.

  But acrimony fades away

  When the sun comes out to make the hay,

  And families work the longest day,

  a harmonious coalition.

  We seldom see the fork and rake,

  Machines of every shape and make,

  That bale and row, and turn and shake,

  usurping their position.

  So every year, come weal or woe,

  We fertilise to make it grow.

  With trembling hopes, we start to mow,

  but it’s always made, somehow.

  And when it’s tarnished in the fray,

  By many a damp and sultry day,

  We tell ourselves it’s still good hay,

  but do we fool the cow?

  A GOOD HAY DAY

  Where Cuilcagh sits by the Shannon pot, watching a giant’s birth,

  The west wind, in the bilberry bloom, gave vent to its pent-up mirth,

  And its turbulent, swooping wrinkles ran,

  A weaving, crimpling, creasing fan,

  Up the rugged, friendly face of Glan, through the sallies on its girth.

  As Elkin fell down grassy slopes to the rushy flats below,

  The heather on its marshy top sang shrill in the whistling flow.

  The clamps of turf began to sway,

  As a sullen child is coaxed to play,

  And the sticky damp is borne away by the sunny western blow.

  Tight to Knockninny’s creviced face, tenacious hazels cling.

  Their gesticulating branches in protesting panic swing,

  And up the Lough, past Innishmore,

  And many another shingled shore,

  The foam flecked wavelets dip and soar, beneath the heron’s wing.

  But the sweetest sound the farmer heard throughout that glorious day,

  Was the throbbing hum of tractors shaking out the wilting hay.

  When the sun and wind had gone to rest,

  Contentment reigned in many a breast,

  As rucks all trimmed and roped and dressed, sat snugly on the brae.

  THE OUL’ McMAHON SPADE

  When history is being written, in the years that lie ahead,

  And the times we’re passing through are of the past,

  When the present politicians and their henchmen will be dead,

  Will the people be enjoying peace at last?

  There will be a passing reference to the farmers of today,

  And to all the drastic changes they have made;

  Well, I hope some kind historian will have a word to say

  Of Fermanagh’s friend, the oul’ McMahon spade.

  When the mighty loy had done its work, and the men who forged it died,

  And we hadn’t got a tool to take its place,

  And the prittas and the oaten meal had still to be supplied,

  Or starvation stared the people in the face,

  Then a genius called McMahon, from the parish of Rosslay,

  Built a foundry and put lift into a blade.

  He got the people’s blessing as they used it every day,

  And Fermanagh got the oul’ McMahon spade.

  And Fermanagh men could use it with dexterity and skill,

  And few sights were more beautiful to see

  Than lines of parallel ridges in rotation on a hill,

  All identical in euclidic symmetry.

  And the mothers we were reared by weren’t loathe to take a hand,

  They could step into the breach, quite undismayed,

  And dig a puck of prittas just as quick as any man,

  With Fermanagh’s friend, the oul’ McMahon spade.

  Now we’ve joined the Common Market we’ve no need to work at all.

  We just turn the cattle loose and watch them grow.

  Then, when they’ve eaten all the grass, we sell them in the fall,

  And hibernate while Arctic breezes blow.

  The old friend that gave us sustenance in our hour of greatest need

  Is cast upon the scrapheap and betraye
d,

  Spurned even by the people that it helped to clothe and feed,

  Fermanagh’s friend, the oul’ McMahon spade.

  THE PRITTA

  It seems that the pritta, once highly respected,

  Is doomed for extinction, neglected, rejected,

  Since Raleigh first brought them, a novelty, here,

  They were seldom as scarce, and were never as dear.

  We grew them in ridges, we grew them in drills,

  In the cut away bogs, and the sides of the hills,

  We dibbled them, guggered them, cut them in two.

  Well the oftener we cut them, the more of them grew.

  We covered the cuts in the soil, out of sight;

  But they always came up to the warmth and light.

  We deluged their leaves with a poisonous spray,

  Still they flourished and blossomed in floral array.

  When it came to their cooking how expert were we,

  Fried boxty for breakfast, a pritta bread tea;

  Or boiled in their jackets, gastronomic perfection,

  All bursting with goodness, a gourmet’s selection.

  ‘Tis not that the pritta has fallen from favour,

  Or lost its distinctive and edible flavour;

  It’s not that the soil is reluctant to grow them,

  Could it be that it’s we are too lazy to sow them?

  But a lot of fresh soil has been turned this year,

  They may never again be so scarce or so dear.

  A word of encouragement; learners should know,

  When an Irishmen plants it, the Pritta will grow.

  CHRISTMAS IN THE FAMINE YEARS

  The soft grey hills are closing in, the purple mountains looming high.

  The little streams are whispering low, the day expires with a sigh.

  A starless, moonless, leaden sky pours on the earth a sombre cloud.

  Mingling mists, from bog and lough, complete the semblance to a shroud.

  No candle lights the window pane, no festive tree adorns the hall.

  No scarlet berried holly flings exuberance from the kitchen wall.

  The laughing, jostling, cheerful crowds, the flaunted joy of other years,

  Gives way to faces grey and wan, the haggard brow, the hidden fears.

  But faith and love walk hand in hand, the churches fill, the people pray;

  The gospel’s hallowed message tells that hope must overcome dismay.

  For, to a subject, fettered race that writhed ‘neath an empire’s scorn,

  In want and hunger and distress, the Saviour of the world was born.

  TAY

  We love to reflect on the days of the past,

  As revealed by historical tomes;

  On the people who lived, when the world was still vast;

  On their worries, their work and their homes.

  Retrospection creates a romantic appeal,

  Life may have been carefree and gay;

  But a query that’s never been answered I feel,

  Is: How did they do without tay?

  When Saint Patrick himself came to free us from sin,

  And place us on paths of devotion,

  He proved that good over evil must win,

  Amid scenes of religious emotion.

  He banished the snakes from the isle of the blest:

  He taught our first saints how to pray,

  And preached in old age with great vigour and zest.

  Well, how was that done without tay?

  There were men who could quarry and carry the stones,

  To the masons, whose aim was perfection.

  They built the round towers, those spherical cones

  Designed for the people’s protection.

  There were painters, musicians and writers of fame,

  Their works highly valued today.

  They ignited and fostered the cultural flame.

  Well, how did they work without tay?

  As we move through an era of seething unrest,

  What looks like a global upheaval,

  While optimists hopefully seek for the best,

  The pessimists only find evil.

  Though the prophets of doom speak of death and the tomb,

  In the midst of their gloom let us say,

  There’s a blossom of hope, that is always in bloom -

  For, thanks be to God, WE have tay.

  OUL’ JOE

  We won’t see Oul’ Joe on the road any more, he won’t call the cows off the hill,

  He is gone, with his treasure of music and lore, the voice of tradition is still.

  Oul’ Joe never slept in a bed he possessed, his ambitions were simple and few,

  In his youth he could whistle a bird off her nest, or, sing ‘til the morning cock crew.

  Untroubled by wealth, without family or tie, as free as the breeze on the braes,

  Oul’ Joe calmly waited his moment to die, and sang to the end of his days.

  While the music he loved fills the soul with delight as it flows through the fiddle and bow,

  And the songs that he sang steals the dark from the night, we shall always remember Oul’ Joe

  A PUFF OF SMOKE

  The old man smoked his faithful pipe, where he stood at the chapel gate.

  Ted Heath and his initiative was the subject for debate.

  While some said yes and some said no, and others said give it time,

  His thoughts went down the fifty years since he was in his prime.

  He heard the men of former days express their hopes and fears,

  The triumphs and defeats they had throughout the teeming years,

  The angry words, the spiteful spleen, the groups of mutual hate,

  He saw and heard them all again outside the chapel gate.

  But the man that he remembered best, had just ignored them all.

  Just like himself he smoked his pipe, his back against the wall.

  One man can play a tune, he said, while hundreds dance a jig.

  The man with the pen will rule, he said, the man with the spade will dig.

  CIVIL WAR

  When the sun goes down and twilight climbs to the top of a silent hill,

  When nature seems to hold its breath and the poplar trees are still,

  Then the lights are lit in the quiet homes, the doors are closed for the night,

  And all that is cold and dark and grey is shut away from sight.

  But the people who live on the narrow streets, where hatred dwells with fear,

  Don’t feel the peace of the darkening hill as the twinkling stars appear,

  Where the smoke and grime of the ghettos fall and the sky is always grey,

  Where a knock on the door means sudden death as the murderer seeks his prey.

  The intimidated, who’d left their homes, the father whose son was slain,

  The refugees who fled in fright, the worried who still remain,

  For them no golden autumn days, no harvest moon shines bright,

  Just the vengeful spleen of orange and green and terror that strikes at night.

  From the blood and tears of a hundred years, when hatred’s seeds were sown,

  From the poisoned soil of prejudice a vicious plant has grown,

  And faith and hope die in its shade while charity departs,

  And bleak despair pollutes the air, in the town of broken hearts.

  LIFE OR DEATH

  A shaft of sunlight fills the glen, where a mountain stream runs free;

  But the ghastly hues of murder loom, between the scene and me.

  From a hazel bush, a warbling thrush pours forth his sweet refrain,

  But it brings no joy to an orphaned boy, whose grief will long remain.

  The whitewashed homes on an emerald hill look peaceful, at the dawn,

  But mothers weep, while children sleep for the fathers, who are gone.

  In the peaceful stillness of the grave, lie all their joys and hopes;

&n
bsp; While the morning light dispels the night, across the mountain slopes.

  How beautiful Lough Erne looks, in the full moon’s crystal beams.

  But the bloodstained pavements of Belfast are haunting all my dreams,

  And Cuilcagh peeps o’er Caroo, at Knockninny on the plain;

  But the peaceful scene is shrouded by the memories of the slain.

  The rippling land loughs of Teemore have never seemed as fair,

  But Ulster’s red hand drips with blood, and sorrow fills the air.

  The star-filled night brings strain and fright, and sin has lost its sting;

  Though the little steam still gurgles forth, from Carn’s spa and spring.

  Wrapped in the earth from whence they came, the silent slaughtered lie,

  Poor victims of sadistic shame, their lot has been, to die.

  If we, who live, do not forgive, their deaths have been in vain.

  So, in God’s name, let us share the blame, and, united, start again.

  A SAINT’S LEGACY

  When Patrick looks down from the mansions above

  On the island of scholars and saints;

  On the people he taught of compassion and love;

  Will he have any complaints?

  On Sundays the churches are full to the door

  As the people assemble to pray;

  They seem to have lost both the rich and the poor,

  They all live and die the same way.

  Does St. Patrick look down on the island of green,

  As it floats on the blue ocean’s crest,

  With its mountains and valleys so calm and serene,

  Like an innocent baby, at rest?

  But if he looked down on the cities of fear

  And the towns that are sundered in pain,