Aughval

You stood at mammy’s grave
A long, long time
I went up the rise
A better view
To see beyond the cemetery wall
To see the sea
Clew Bay and all I knew

Blue it was that day
The sea the sky
The mountain
Looking down across the bay
And Clare Island out at sea
We went there once
You and me
And mammy came
Look my new family

Nephin to the right
And Achill out of sight
In a blue back haze
And summer breeze
I watched you where you stood
Now you’re gone for good
I see the image now
And in frame freeze

Did you know it then?
How short your life has been
Forty-seven years
Your allotted span
Mammy 94
Doubling your score
Strange the way
That life shares out the can

Six weeks on from then
Your days on earth were ended
After all your trials
Still a surprise
But the day in Aughval lingers
And like beads tolled through my fingers
I mull it over
Time and time again

Brian Fahy
18 May 2021

* After a great reunion of Carey Cousins in August 2012, Margaret and I visited my mammy’s grave in Aughval, Westport, County Mayo. Six weeks later and unexpectedly, Margaret died.