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.