Hillsborough, County Down, September 15, 2012

 

He must have thought it another bloody

rough and tumble scrum,

a bone crushing brawl

heads bashing, the thud of bodies,

skin burning, eyes mud-blinded

arms and legs slipping through his fingers.

Sin-binned.

 

But he was on his farm.

Sweet-scented breezes slipped

down from Slievenamon.

The Holsteins lowed in the upper pasture

as twilight flooded his fields, a buzz saw snap

from where he first played in Ballynahinch.

And from my mother’s grassy-knolled farm

where on summer nights

a hundred couples quickstepped under a canopy

like one wild whirlwind

and I, spun by powerful men like him

who radiated such heat,

I thought they had sprung whole

from loamy peat. Bejesus

he must have said to himself. Holy shit.

 

At the last, memories looked back at him

with greedy eyes: pricking his tiny fingers

picking blueberries, running the leather

with his brother and his Da.

He must have extended his hand

to them. Up the field, boys, his sister swore

she heard him say when she went out

to call them to supper.

 

And then the full press,

the kick, the thrill

of rushing them all home.