On Saturday night, the team was in Belfast to celebrate the end of our time together.  There was good food, good company, good Guinness (or Magners!), and good craic.  Stuart had shared some of his Dad's poetry with us.  Maybe it was being at Kelly's where there was a great session going on with some trad music.  Or maybe it was the sense we were all leaving, much like the character in the poem.  But our thoughts turned to good byes, and someone came up with th idea of Stuart reciting his Dad's poem for us.  Many, many thanks to Monty Alexander for sharing his work.  Everyone who read the poem identified somehow with it on some level.

EVENING THOUGHTS

I remember long ago, beside the warm turf fire

Father resting in his chair, before he did retire

Oil lamp with double burner, sitting on the shelf

High up, out of reach, for someone like myself

The newspaper it was poised, so as to catch the light

Enabling him to read it, in a glow that was not bright

Plug tobacco’s heavy fragrance hung upon the air

Nowhere I’ve ever been, does that scene compare

Griddle, pot and pan, at that hour were all at rest

For supper, soda farl and pancake, butter of the best

Then to bed under patchwork quilts, we lay down to sleep

Before this nightly repose, we’d pray us the Lord to keep

When grown I walked the loanin, by the dry stone wall

That far off sad departing, I here now recall

Mother kissed me on the cheek, a tear within her eye

A sister trudged beside me, wrecked by sob and sigh

Father shook me by the hand, and told me to take care

And remember all of them, I was leaving there

Aware of my crunching boots, I looked back in a final nod

My future to America, I placed before our God

Passing the school where I was taught, on that far off morn

I vowed the write to one and all, just there where I was born

Believing I was on my own, I happened to look round

The Dog, he had followed me, paddling along the ground

I patted him upon the head and ordered him back home

No longer would we hunt and fish, o’er the hills to roam

He just stopped and stood there, as I disappeared from view

Never to see each other again; this he somehow knew

Years have passed since I sat, beside the burning turf

I’ve seen mountains high and valleys low, and the Pacific’s surf

Here in my adopted land, I have dallied and I’ve wrought

Conflict I have faced, I have hunted and I’ve fought

But in the gloom of evening, when each day is over

I see Whin Bushes blooming, the Shamrock and the Clover

Bramble intertwined with Thorn, along the lanes of home

In the land of Erin, from whence I was to roam