as if he were a piece of pigment in a painting a blob or blur
of blue or green or something in between.
"What a wonderful little boy!" a passing cloud, pauses...muses
and says once more in case the hill hadn't heard.
"What a wonderful little boy indeed!" a tree agrees...winking...its leaves.
A river runs through him alive in his senses.
The grass runs all over the field tickling his naked toes.
Sunlight throws itself at his feet
bows before him in all its glory.
A breeze throws his hat high up in the sky and
returns it to his hand as if by command.
The clouds grazing now upon a hill top
fascinated by his presence how he has come to be.
"He makes us feel so very much alive!"
One cloud nods to another.
"Oh, there's a poet in him to be sure to be sure!"
the river remarks its voice clamouring over stones.
Time that sheep dog barks but the clouds only laugh
"See how he lends us his voice
in order that we may think and speak.
Look I'm talking in human words."
"Ballea...Ballea...Ballea!" the farm shouts its name.
Again and again and again the river exclaims
" Own na Buidhe... Own na Buidhe... Own na Buidhe" sunlight dancing in its voice.
A bird stands stock still upon the air
neither coming or going just standing on nothing
as if it were a punctuation mark typed upon the sky.
Time returns now in policeman mood.
"Move along now...nothing to see here move along now!"
And the landscape loses a voice the sky its ability to see the cloud has no words the bird become a dot
only the sunset whispers to an horizon
"What a wonderful wonderful little boy!"
*
Still that one field in my childhood that I keep returning to and the song that contains both river and me in it. My Aunt Peggy the once little time I spent with her when she came over from America always called me the title!
Carrigdhoun (Denny Lane)
The heath was green on Carrigdhoun. Bright shone the sun o'er Ard-na-Lee The dark green trees bent trembling down To kiss the slumbering Own na Buidhe. That happy day -- 'twas but last May -- 'Tis like a dream to me, When Donal swore, aye o'er and o'er, We'd part no more a stοΏ½r mo chroidhe. On Carrigdhoun the heath is brown. The clouds are dark o'er Ard-na-Lee, And many a stream comes rushing down To swell the angry Owen na Buidhe. The moaning blast is sweeping past Through many a leafless tree, And I'm alone, for he is gone, My hawk has flown, ochone mo chroidhe. Soft April showers and bright May flowers Will bring the summer back again, But will they bring me back the hours I spent with my brave Donal then? There's but a chance. he's gone to France To wear the Fleur-de-Lis. But I'll follow you, my Donal Dhu, For still I'm true to you mo chroidhe.
The song was originally called "The Lament of the Irish Maiden" and was written by Denny Lane from Cork. It is a political song telling of the flight from Ireland of Sarsfield's "Wild Geese" in 1691. The air for Carrigdhoun was the inspiration for the music to the Percy French song "The Mountains of Mourne."