THIS IS YOUR LAND
(Remembering my father in Keash,
County Sligo 15 April 2001)
I seek you on this land I’m walking,
this byway from Ballymote,
across from Emlaghfad,
bright with the hope of newborn
calves on an evening fraught
with the scent of foot and mouth.
I sense you here, hoofing it like
me or spinning on your bike. I see
your youngest brother on his way
to town for that glass hammer and
packet of rubber nails that you and
your older brothers codded him into
asking for at the hardware store.
Before me, Céis Chorainn with its
gap-toothed smile, in the cavities of
which dwelt Cormac, son of Art
(wolf-reared), the master-smith of
the Fianna, Mac Líomtha, and
Diarmuid and Gráinne, awaiting
the false forgiveness of Fionn.
This is the upland of Céis, harper
of the Tuatha Dé Danann,
the heights of the Fianna where
Caoilte led the hunt, where the
indomitable Goll MacMorna slew
the bristling hags, where the plash
of subterranean waters announced
the birth of Ce, daughter of
Manannán and the fairy queen.
Demi-gods as familiar to you
as the pheasant in the field,
the children playing ball,
the ill-tempered dog in the yard,
as the rabbit snowtailing it
to its ditch. Time then, amid the
blaze of celandine, to conjure
a mutual gape ciphered in the
sensibility of our other days.
Photo: Caves of Keshcorran from below – Photographer Jon Sullivan
With kind permission. www.pdphoto.org
